On November 2, the Commanders announced that Daniel and Tanya Snyder “have hired BofA Securities to consider potential transactions.” In the aftermath, reports emerged that, for example, the Snyders are willing to sell the whole team, that the magic number is $7 billion, that they’d like to close the deal in March 2023, and that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is interested in buying.
Since a November 17 story that the massive financial resources belonging to Bezos could scare away other bidders, the situation has gone quiet.
When the statement was released more than five weeks ago, one source with extensive knowledge of Daniel Snyder’s 23-year ownership of the team expressed concern that Snyder might decide not to sell at all. That same source agreed with our recent suspicion that Snyder might have simply announced his intention to sell in order to smoke out Bezos as being interested, so that Snyder could then claim that this entire “smear campaign” is about forcing Snyder to sell to Bezos.
The source is aware of no objective indication that the process is moving forward. Indeed, multiple interested parties (per the source) have encountered some “resistance” in their effort to move things forward.
Against that background, the league’s owners gather this week in Texas for a quarterly meeting. Previously, there was a question as to whether at least 24 votes could be mustered to force Snyder out. The source says that, in the aftermath of the release of the dueling Oversight Committee reports this week, momentum could be growing to force Snyder out — if he doesn’t sell.
During the October meeting, Colts owner Jim Irsay offered strong public comments advocating for consideration of voting Snyder out. In the owners-only session that followed Irsay’s remarks, the league office advised the owners to not discuss the situation in that setting.
This time around, a simple question can be asked — publicly by Irsay or privately by any of the other owners. Are the Snyders selling the team or not?
If so, they could be nudged to move things along. If not, the wheels could be put in motion to make it happen involuntarily.
The final piece of the puzzle continues to be the ongoing investigation by Mary Jo White, a followup to the Beth Wilkinson probe that some believe uncovered more than enough to disqualify Snyder from ongoing membership in Club Oligarch.
She started in February 2022. Commanders lawyer John Brownlee told #PFTPM in late October that she had yet to interview Snyder. It’s unknown whether the interview has happened since then, or whether it will.
Regardless, there are reasons to believe that the owners aren’t going to sit back and let the Snyder’s leave the team on the market long enough to simply never sell. As the source noted, the inability to strike a stadium deal eventually will be the catalyst to sell. Of course, the Snyder would first have to admit to themselves that they can’t work out the terms for a new stadium. Maybe they’ll indefinitely defer that realization, too.
It seems that their partners will consider taking action long before the Snyders conclude that a new stadium won’t happen without a new owner.