David Rosenthal

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.

This is an extremely valuable asset.

So, yes, on the one hand, that's great news.

It's validation of the NFL's whole strategy for the past hundred years.

On the other hand, they've kind of become hostages of their own success because of all those strict ownership rules that they have.

They now need to come up with a new principal owner candidate who has enough liquid cash to cover an emergency purchase of 30%, at least, of the Washington football team.

When the Walton family bought the Broncos, I think for $4.65 billion.

So just to put some numbers on this, the commanders ultimately sell for just north of $6 billion.

So the minimum required cash equity check here is at least $1.8 billion that you need somebody who just has that liquidity lying around that they could, in a fast process, invest in an NFL team.

And, oh yeah, they also have to fit the Venn diagram of...

want to own an NFL team based in Washington, D.C.

This is not a large pool of buyers here.

So ultimately, they do find a buyer, Josh Harris, who is the co-founder of the huge private equity firm Apollo, and already owned the Philadelphia 76ers in the NBA and the New Jersey Devils in the NHL.