After months of grinding on the details, the sale of the Washington Commanders is officially complete. And with it, lightning-rod team owner Dan Snyder is no longer a member of the league’s ownership class.
Snyder's fellow NFL franchise owners voted unanimously to approve the $6.05 billion sale on Thursday, according to ESPN's Adam Schefter, transferring the team into the hands of a group led by private equity investor Josh Harris. The move came swiftly after the league's finance committee gave club owners a green light earlier in the week, recommending a transaction that could ultimately pave the way for future "group collectives" purchasing NFL teams, rather than the tradition model of one owner holding the majority of equity in a franchise.
The sale sets a new world record in pricing for a sports team, eclipsing the $5.3 billion purchase of English Premier League club Chelsea in 2022 by a group led by Los Angeles Dodgers co-owner Todd Boehly. It also represents a significant leap forward for NFL franchise prices, significantly outpacing the $4.65 billion purchase of the Denver Broncos by the Walton-Penner group last year.
Aside from the weighty financial implications of the sale for the NFL, it also represents a fresh start for a franchise and fan base that went through significant upheaval during Snyder’s tenure. Despite entering the league’s ownership ranks in 1999 with big expectations following his $800 million purchase of the Washington franchise, Snyder’s reign became mired in a vast array of failure. From decades of poor performance on the field to the long-running controversy over the team’s former nickname — not to mention an inability to secure a new stadium — Snyder was largely seen across the league as a man running a once-proud cornerstone franchise into the ground.
None of those lowlights cast a shadow as troubling as the numerous workplace complaints and litany of investigations into Snyder and his franchise over the past decade, all of which culminated in an NFL ownership tide that prodded Thursday's sale. Yet, even with some finality arriving this week, the league still has some pending entanglements with Snyder, including the league's sexual misconduct investigation into the franchise by Mary Jo White, as well as former NFL head coach Jon Gruden's pending lawsuit against the league over controversial leaked emails.
