There’s a penalty for sucking as an NFL owner. A real price to pay for being universally despised in your industry. Do you know what it is? Potentially walking away with a couple of billion dollars.
Yeah, forget about the big Powerball jackpot that hit $1.2 billion this week; the actual lottery winners are the owners of NFL teams. Dan Snyder is one of them, and even though he is utterly useless, he is in the process of making billions if he sells the Washington Commanders.
Snyder paid $750 million for the Washington Redskins in 1999. The team had a historical legacy, one of the most successful franchises in history. Then he took over. And if you look up the word “debacle” in the dictionary, there’s a darn good chance you’ll see his smug mug and his team’s logo next to it.
The blue of the team right now is $5.6 billion. If Snyder ends up selling the team, which his 31 colleagues in the NFL desperately hope he does, he will make $4.9 billion.
So let’s get to the good part. Is he seriously thinking of doing it? It sounds like it since he has hired Bank of America Securities to look into the potential sale.
His team hasn’t done squat on the field during his two-plus decade reign, but boy, did he make an impact off the field. A former employee testified in Congress that the Commanders kept two financial records. One was for “underreported ticket revenue that went to the NFL,” and the other was the “full, complete picture” of the organization’s finances. Snyder was aware of this and “also being privy to the actual data.” That’s according to a Fox Business story.
The Feds are crawling all over Snyder’s business now, which might make him really want to cash out and hit a beach. The U.S. attorney’s office in the Eastern District of Virginia has opened up a criminal investigation into the team’s financial improprieties.
It would be nice if Snyder could sneak away from his legal headaches and enjoy the success of the 2022 version of his team. But they are terrible. A playoff appearance is about as likely as Snyder becoming the NFL’s next Commissioner.
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