Jeff Bezos and Jay-Z are the early frontrunners to buy the Washington Commanders from Dan Snyder with a potential price tag of $6 billion.
Just a few short years ago, Dan Snyder told the public that he’d never change the team’s name. It’s changed twice. He said that he’d never sell the team. But after a congressional investigation into the corporate culture of sexual harassment and now a criminal investigation into the Commanders’ business practices, Snyder announced that he had hired Bank of America to explore selling the team.
Though the process for a potential sale is just beginning, people in the DC community and NFL fans writ large have already started celebrating. The Washington Commanders under Dan Snyder have been the black sheep of the league for years. Between his miserly business practices and the horrendous workplace culture, the greater DC community started to find it difficult to support the team, brazenly chanting for the sale at home games. It’s no surprise that the team only won two playoff games under his tenure.
But as DC starts to look beyond Snyder, the obvious question becomes this: who could replace him? NFL teams don’t go on sale often. The Denver Broncos sold last summer for $4.65 billion. Early estimates, however, suggest that Commanders could sell for as high as $6 billion.
To own an NFL franchise is to become a member of perhaps the most elite club on the planet. This beach front property, so to speak, is reserved for only the uber-wealthy. So who could buy the team? None other than the second richest person in the world, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, in a potential partnership with megastar Jay-Z.
Jeff Bezos, Jay-Z team up to explore purchase for Washington Commanders
Bezos is an obvious choice. With nearly $150 billion to his name, he wouldn’t need to pinch pennies to come up with the money. Moreover, in the past few years, Bezos moved Amazon’s second HQ to Northern Virginia and purchased the Washington Post to plant deeper roots in the area. Including Jay-Z would add further celebrity to the deal and rally support for a team in desperate need of fresh blood. Jay-Z and Roc Nation have been partnering with the NFL since 2019, working extensively with the NFL’s “Inspire Change” initiative.
What’s more, Dan Snyder had been looking to move the team out of FedEx Field in Landover, MD — named the worst stadium in the league. But because of his unpopularity as an owner, the team’s name, and the rapid growth of the area, he lacked the political capital to get a new stadium built. New ownership could resurrect the Commanders and even get the team back to the RFK Stadium location in DC proper.