At 10:59 a.m. Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2022, Forbes posted the following story: “Dan Snyder has retained BofA Securities to sell the Washington Commanders.”
Three minutes later, the Commanders issued this statement: “Dan and Tanya Snyder and the Washington Commanders announced today that they have hired BofA Securities to consider potential transactions.”
Seconds later, the angels sang.
A historic announcement like this should have been brought down from a mountain on tablets by some bearded white-haired man. I was available.
There may have been a sense of cautious freedom on the part of Washington football fans who have been walking in the desert for 22 years when this news broke. After all, it didn’t exactly have a statement from Skipper Dan the Sailing Man that said, “You’ve got your wish. I’m going to take my $7 billion or so and sail off into the sunset.”
He used the words “potential transaction.”
Hey, even those original Ten Commandments turned out to be confusing.
But make no mistake — Skipper Dan is jumping ship. He has put the team up for sale. This is not some kind of bid for a cash infusion from minority investors, as some fear.
The NFL billionaires club — the same owners who appear to want to make Skipper Dan walk the plank — would have to approve any new Commanders investors. What’s the likelihood of those owners giving Skipper Dan a financial life preserver with new investors?
Then again, it’s hard to imagine anyone wanting to do business with Skipper Dan at this point. What he offers may be profitable — the NFL appears to be damage-proof — but this particular product is also diseased and damaged and devoid of joy.
Outsiders who were not paying attention to the day-to-day pain of Skipper Dan’s ownership of this football team may be shocked at the celebration of the news that the team was put up for sale. Unless you were here, close by, I don’t think anyone can appreciate the level of despair and disgust that fans lived with. It grew in intensity with the July 2020 Washington Post article in which more than a dozen women alleged sexual harassment and verbal abuse by team officials. That number grew to more than 40 women, speaking through attorney Lisa Banks, and resulted in the Beth Wilkinson investigation.
After that, Skipper Dan started bleeding from everywhere. The count is nine investigations into the Commanders owner and his team from various organizations and agencies, the latest being the U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia investigating Commander’s financial improprieties allegations, according to ESPN.
That’s not to be mistaken for the investigation being conducted by the Virginia attorney general into financial misconduct. The D.C. attorney general is conducting a similar probe.
The Commanders’ response to the ESPN story came in a statement from the latest attorney Skipper Dan has hired in his march through the Yellow Pages under “lawyers” — John Brownlee of Holland and Knight:
“It is not surprising that ESPN is publishing more falsehoods based solely on anonymous sources — given today’s announcement. We are confident that, after these agencies have had a chance to review the documents and complete their work, they will come to the same conclusion as the team’s internal review — that these allegations are simply untrue.”
In the story “Dopesick,” the great American tale of the opioid epidemic and greed and inhumanity chronicled in the book by Beth Macy and further revealed in the Hulu miniseries, John Brownlee is one of the good guys, the prosecutor who tried to stand up to Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family, the opioid pushers who wrecked lives and counted their money to donate to art museums.
Now he represents Skipper Dan. I guess everyone has a price.
We’ll find out what Skipper Dan’s price is. That could be $7 billion or more. In August the Denver Broncos sold for $4.65 billion. Forbes has valued the Commanders franchise at $5.6 billion. I’m guessing that the conversation that needed to take place between Skipper Dan and fellow NFL owners about taking the money happened.
There will be a line of bidders willing to pay.
Amazon boss and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos is reportedly interested. So is media executive and former television star Byron Allen. Josh Harris, part-owner of the New Jersey Devils in the NHL and the Philadelphia 76ers in the NBA — born in Chevy Chase, Maryland — has been mentioned. Another is Todd Boehly, a McLean, Virginia, native who is co-owner of the Premier League football club Chelsea and the Los Angeles Dodgers. Given the potential this franchise has for restoration and its importance in the nation’s capital, Skipper Dan will get his price.
When that happens, he should take some of that money and write a check to every Washington Football fan who bought the junk he has been selling them since Skipper Dan purchased the team in 1999, with a note that says, “Sorry.”
Hear Thom Loverro on The Kevin Sheehan Show podcast.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.