With the Browns on the verge of being sold by Randy Lerner to Jimmy Haslam, some of you have asked which other teams could be available.
OK, one of you has asked. “Some” sounds better.
The chatter in league circles is that the teams most likely to be on the market in the not-too-distant future are the Bills, Titans, and Broncos.
The Bills and Titans are each held by their original AFL owners. Ralph Wilson, who initially wanted to put an AFL team in Miami, has owned the Bills since 1960. Bud Adams founded the Houston Oilers that same year, moving them to Tennessee 35 years later.
It’s believed that the families of Wilson, 93, and Adams, 89, will sell the franchises once they inherit ownership of them. Actually, Haslam had been rumored as one of the candidates to buy the Titans, given that Haslam’s family lives and works in Tennessee.
The reasons for the potential availability of the Broncos, another original AFL franchise, aren’t known. Owner Pat Bowlen is only 68, which makes him a spring chicken in relation to some of his colleagues. Rumors and reports of memory issues swirled a couple of years ago, but that talk largely has subsided. Some in Denver believe that, eventually, Bowlen will find a way to sell the team to V.P. of football operations John Elway, and that Elway will find a way to buy it.
Potential buyers don’t have to cut a check for $1 billion or close to that amount. Instead, league rules permit one person to own as little as 30 percent. Technically, one family may own 30 percent, with at least one person from the family owning 10 percent.
Here’s hoping the Kardashians aren’t aware of that.