David Rosenthal

And they can hash out and say, hey, these are the things, collective capitalism, these are the things we're going to do that are going to be

good for the league and putting teams second, like negotiating central national media rights, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

So all of this worked great until the summer of 2023, when the Washington Commanders, formerly until recently at that point known as the Washington Redskins, stumbled into a distressed situation.

We don't need to get into all the details here, but

Most folks who are followers of the NFL probably know that then-principal team owner Dan Snyder, who had owned the team for almost a quarter century...

essentially got brought down by a whole series of scandals.

There was sexual harassment.

There was workplace harassment.

There was financial improprieties.

There was the fact that he steadfastly refused to change the name of the team for like a decade, even after it's kind of untenable what the name was.

Yeah, if you go to Dan Snyder's Wikipedia page, it literally says on his Wikipedia page, Snyder is widely considered to be one of the worst owners in the history of North American professional sports and has a whole train of citations after that.

This ultimately ends up

in 2021, 2, 3, in a U.S.

congressional investigation into the Redskins slash Commanders and Dan Snyder's ownership of them.

And at the end of 22, as these investigations are ongoing, the rest of the owners in the NFL finally decide, like, enough.

We need to kick this guy out of the league and force him to sell the team, which they can do.

by the NFL's bylaws, if there is a super majority vote of at least 24 of the other principal team owners, they can force one of the other owners to divest the team.

It doesn't actually come down to a vote, but just by virtue of having that leverage, in 2023, Snyder finally steps down, stops fighting, and says, okay, I will bow to the pressure and initiate a sale process here.

Well, the good news, bad news for the NFL is that because they've been so successful and the Washington football team is a great franchise, great stadium rights, etc.

Key market.