When the news broke in November 2022 that former Washington Commanders owner Daniel Snyder hired Bank of America to explore a sale of the team he owned since 1999, many believed Amazon founder Jeff Bezos would be the next owner.
However, some believed Snyder would never sell to Bezos, one of the wealthiest people in the world, because he owned The Washington Post. Snyder’s history with The Post was complicated as it broke several stories on his alleged misconduct that eventually led him to put the team up for sale.
Snyder sold the team to an ownership group led by Josh Harris, a Washington, D.C., area native who also owns the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers and NHL’s New Jersey Devils. The $6.05 billion sale was complicated by the number of minority investors in Harris’ group. It was the highest price ever paid for a U.S. pro sports franchise.
It was later revealed that Snyder didn’t prevent Bezos from bidding on the team. Most assumed Bezos just didn’t get involved in the bidding.
A new report from Martha Muir and Anna Nicolaou of the Financial Times indicates that not only did Bezos get involved, but he was actually outbid by Harris and his group.
Of all Bezos’s thwarted Washington initiatives, however, the one that may hit closest to home is his failed pursuit of the Commanders. A life-long NFL fan, Bezos had repeatedly signalled his wish to enter the elite club of football team owners.
Bezos went so far as to put an ownership group together with music mogul Jay-Z to acquire the Commanders, but was outbid by fellow billionaire Josh Harris, co-founder of the private equity firm Apollo.
At the time, some US media outlets reported that the team’s then owner, Dan Snyder, blocked Bezos’s bid because of his ownership of the Post — which almost single-handedly forced Snyder to sell, after it revealed the team allegedly tolerated pervasive sexual harassment and employee abuse.
Here’s the key part from the report:
People briefed on the process, however, insist Bezos was simply outbid by Harris, who acquired the team for $6bn. “I don’t think Snyder would have not sold to them if Jeff came in with a bid of $7 billion,” said a person involved in the process.
Bezos is worth over $200 billion, so his simply being outbid is strange. Perhaps he wasn’t going to allow Snyder to raise the price and force him to bid against himself for a damaged brand in which Bezos would need to spend millions more due to Snyder’s previous mismanagement.
The Harris Ownership Group has already paid $75 million toward improvements to the former FedEx Field and Washington’s team headquarters in Ashburn, Va., that Snyder ignored for years.
If Bezos wants in the NFL, there’s a good chance the Seattle Seahawks will be available in the next several years and that could be a more attractive opportunity for Bezos.
Harris and his group have proven to be the right owners for the Washington franchise at the right time.