BLOOMINGTON, Minn. — NFL owners unanimously approved the sale of the Washington Commanders on Thursday from Dan Snyder to a group led by Josh Harris and including Magic Johnson for a record $6.05 billion.
All 32 team owners voted for the sale, which is the highest price paid for a North American professional sports team. After the finance committee approved the agreement with the new ownership group, Harris Blitzer Sports and Entertainment, a special league meeting was called to consider and vote on it before the 2023 season begins.
Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones beamed as he walked off an escalator and headed toward the meeting room, granting a brief interview with reporters about the impending sale of his team’s division rival.
“It’s a hallmark day,” Jones said. “I’m excited about the prospects of going into Washington and giving them some capital punishment.”
Snyder had owned his favorite boyhood team since 1999, when he bought it for $800 million. Success was fleeting, both on and off the field. With Snyder in charge, the team made the playoffs just six times in 24 years, only twice won a postseason game and went 166-226-2 overall. The franchise has lost a significant amount of luster from the glory days under coach Joe Gibbs, who won three Super Bowls in his 12-year run from 1981-92.
Then there were the problems outside of football, from a feud with minority owners that led Snyder to buy out their shares of the team to allegations of sexual harassment by former employees, which prompted a series of investigations into workplace misconduct. Over and over again, Snyder said he would never sell the team.
The tide began to shift on that front last October when Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay said there was “merit to remove” Snyder, an ouster that would have required votes from at least 24 of the other 31 clubs. Two weeks later, Snyder and his wife Tanya hired a firm to begin exploring a sale of part or all of one of the NFL’s oldest franchises — one that has called the nation’s capital home since 1937.
Ultimately, that process led to a group chaired by Harris. His investment crew also includes David Blitzer, with whom he co-owns the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers and the NHL’s New Jersey Devils, Washington-area businessman Mitchell Rales and more than a dozen others. The unusually large ownership group needed and received league finance approval for a deal that shattered the $4.35 billion Walmart heir Rob Walton paid last year for the Denver Broncos.
The special meeting for the Commanders sale was conducted at the same hotel adjacent to the Mall of America in suburban Minneapolis where Walton’s group gained formal control of the Broncos.
Their biggest immediate challenge for the long-term future of the organization is a new stadium to replace FedEx Field, the rushed-to-completion home of the team since 1997 in Landover, Maryland, that has not aged well. Virginia abandoned a stadium bill more than a year ago, a consequence of the number of off-field controversies swirling around the team.
Bringing the fans back is a major priority after Washington ranked last in the league in attendance in 2022 and second-to-last in 2021. The team rebranded last year as the Commanders after dropping the name Redskins in 2020 and generically going by the Washington Football Team for two seasons.
Snyder’s attorneys attended the meeting. He did not.
Snyder fined $60 million after investigation
Owners also received an in-person update at the meeting from former U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White on her investigation for the NFL into the Commanders that began 1½ years ago. That was launched in light of the congressional review into workplace misconduct that also included a referral to the Federal Trade Commission for potential business improprieties by Snyder.
Snyder sexually harassed a team employee and oversaw team executives who deliberately withheld millions of dollars in revenue from other clubs, and he has agreed to pay a $60 million fine, the league announced.
The NFL released a 23-page report detailing the findings of an independent investigation into Snyder’s conduct just minutes after its owners unanimously approved the sale of the Commanders. The fine represents 1% of the sale price.
The investigation was led by White, who is a former Securities and Exchange Commission chair, and conducted by her law firm, Debevoise & Plimpton. The league had pledged to make the findings of the probe public.
Investigators concluded that Washington withheld $11 million in revenue that should have been shared with other teams, an amount the report suggests may have been far greater. White’s firm was unable to reach a conclusion about tens of millions of additional dollars that may have been withheld in part because Snyder and the team did not cooperate fully with the investigation, according to the report.
The report concluded that Snyder sexually harassed former team employee Tiffani Johnston, allegations that Johnston first made last year in front of a House committee. Snyder placed his hand on Johnston’s thigh at a team dinner and pushed her toward his car as they were leaving the restaurant, the report said.
“The findings do speak for themselves. In both cases, it’s inappropriate, it’s wrong, it doesn’t match our values,” Commissioner Roger Goodell said at a news conference in Minnesota after NFL owners voted.
Snyder has denied Johnston’s allegations and repeated that denial in an interview with White’s investigators. He only agreed to speak with investigators for one hour, the report said.
Investigators spoke with Johnston several times and “found her to be highly credible,” the report said, and her account was corroborated by witnesses and other evidence.
The report also concluded that a former team executive improperly took possession of a photograph of Johnston from a calendar shoot of the team’s cheerleaders. Johnston was wearing lingerie in the photo, which had not been edited “to fully cover inadvertent exposures.” Investigators found insufficient evidence to show Snyder was personally involved in that incident.
White’s firm did not conclude whether Snyder was personally aware of the financial improprieties, but witnesses told investigators that Snyder repeatedly pressured team employees to improve its financial performance, telling them, “every dollar matters.” Documents detailing how the team moved revenue into accounts that shielded the money from other teams were shared with Snyder on at least one occasion, the report said.
“At a minimum, (Snyder) was aware of certain efforts to minimize revenue sharing, at least some of which were later found to be in violation of the NFL rules,” the report said.
In order to skirt NFL revenue-sharing rules, Washington would classify team-related revenue as money made from special events such as concerts, college football games or soccer games.
“(I)f the NFL had a jail … we would be in it,” a team employee wrote to its chief financial officer in 2010 after agreeing to allocate NFL revenue to a college game.
Former team employee Jason Friedman had told Congress about the financial improprieties, alleging that the Commanders had “a second set of books.” The investigation corroborated his account. Among its findings were that millions of dollars in revenue from “tickets sold or bartered with sponsors at falsely undervalued prices” were moved into accounts that hid the money from the league.
In addition to the $11 million that White’s firm found the team withheld from the league, forensic accountants who reviewed the team’s books identified another $44 million in parking, license and other revenues that were transferred from accounts holding league revenue into special events accounts.
The report notes that the team’s revenue-shielding scheme “appear(s) to have become more aggressive after its ticket sales began deteriorating in 2008.” Washington had long touted a decades-long waiting list for season tickets, but demand cratered under Snyder’s stewardship of the team, which went 166-226-2 overall and won only two playoff games during his 24 years as owner.
Snyder long had a reputation for squeezing every possible dollar out of fans, from aggressive pricing of parking and concessions to charging fans to attend training camp. He even filed lawsuits against fans for canceling their season tickets. The District of Columbia Attorney General’s office reached a settlement with Snyder over the team’s failure to return season-ticket security deposits.
White’s firm wrote that while Snyder and the team pledged to fully cooperate with investigators, they did not. Instead, the Commanders failed to produce requested documents, declined to let investigators speak to the team’s external auditors, and engaged in other tactics that “delayed and impeded the investigation.”
“Evidencing his individual failure to cooperate, Mr. Snyder engaged in months of scheduling, canceling, and rescheduling of his interview,” the report said.