The Washington Commanders appear more likely to be sold to a new owner in the offseason, after years of pressure for current owner Dan Snyder to sell the longtime struggling franchise.
The team announced in November 2022 it was exploring a sale and had hired Bank of America to “consider potential transactions” regarding ownership, with reports now suggesting a sale could come in the next few months.
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Jay Glazer, Fox Sports’s NFL insider, suggests the timeline for the team’s sale is before the NFL owner’s meeting in the new league year.
“I think sooner than later. This whole time, they’ve wanted to get something done where they could basically vote on it at the March NFL owner’s meetings, that’s at the end of March there. Where all the owners could vote. And that’s when it becomes official, the sale has to be agreed on before that. So the latest you’re looking at is the end of March,” Glazer said.
A sale of the Commanders would require three-fourths, or 24 of the 32 teams, approving the bid.
Snyder has been under intense pressure to sell the franchise amid reports of allegations of a toxic work environment perpetuated by the owner and other team executives, leading to Snyder testifying before a House committee over the allegations. With the House Oversight committee later calling the testimony he gave “evasive” and “misleading.”
The Commanders owner was fined $10 million by the NFL after a league investigation found the team oversaw the organization in a “highly unprofessional” manner, which included intimidation, bullying, allegations of sexual harassment, and a lack of respect for women in the workplace.
Names that have been brought up as candidates for a new owner includes billionaire Jeff Bezos, who is the executive chairman of Amazon and owns the Washington Post. Snyder reportedly has no interest in selling to Bezos because “he detests the Washington Post,” per NBC Sports’s Peter King.
Among the “half-dozen” bids submitted to Bank of America for ownership of the team, none of them exceeded $6.3 billion, per Front Office Sports. The report also says Bezos did not submit a bid in the initial round.
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The team has been mum on if a sale is imminent, but the option remains for Snyder not to sell and maintain ownership of the franchise. The league has not forced him to sell the Commanders, but has increasingly put pressure on Synder to make changes to the team.
The biggest change for the Commanders was the retirement of the previous name the “Redskins,” with some saying it was offensive to Native Americans. The team was temporarily known as the “Washington Football Team” during the 2020 and 2021 seasons, with the Commanders name being unveiled on Feb. 2, 2022.
