Josh Harris is no stranger to owning sports teams. And, as a rumored front-runner to buy the Washington Commanders, the Miami-based billionaire could be adding another franchise to his collection.
NBC Sports Washington reported this week that Harris, the managing partner of the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers and the NHL’s New Jersey Devils, is “perhaps the top candidate” to buy the Commanders — with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos yet to make an offer and investor Todd Boehly dropping out of the bidding.
There are a lot of dominoes still to fall, but Harris’ track record across two major North American franchises offers insight into how the Commanders might operate differently under someone other than Dan Snyder. Though the NBA and the NHL are most decidedly not the NFL — nothing in the world of sports is, really — Harris and his ownership group, Harris Blitzer Sports and Entertainment, have shown the billionaire is willing to gamble big when it comes to running a sports franchise.
“Owning a club, the city is really depending on you to win,” Harris said at a London business conference in 2021. “That’s different, you know, to when you are a fan, and you can kind of make comments. You are actually involved in the decision-making. You have a lot of responsibility.”
In the NBA, the 76ers are a contender in the Eastern Conference with two stars in Joel Embiid and James Harden, a championship-winning coach in Doc Rivers and a top executive in Daryl Morey. But they didn’t become that overnight — and the, ahem, process to get there is what has defined Harris’ tenure.
Two years after buying the 76ers in 2011, Harris opted for a polarizing bottom-out strategy that spearheaded the league’s debate on tanking. By hiring general manager Sam Hinkie, Philadelphia embraced tearing down its roster in an attempt to lose as many games as possible to shore up better draft positioning.
The 76ers didn’t invent the strategy, though the team took it to the extreme over a multi-year plan. That approach, better known as “The Process,” was divisive — Hinkie resigned near the end of his third season, months after Harris hired Jerry Colangelo as a special adviser — but was ultimately rewarding. The 76ers drafted Embiid with the third overall pick in 2014 and had collected enough assets to trade for Harden last year.
“We have conviction that our strategy is right,” Harris told the Daily Pennsylvanian in 2017.
In the NHL, Harris’ Devils haven’t gone to the extreme of bottoming out — but the owner has shown patience and the willingness to swing big since buying the franchise in 2013. In Harris’ tenure as owner, the Devils have been aggressive with trades for stars such as winger Taylor Hall (2016) and defenseman P.K. Subban (2019). But they’ve also generally drafted well, hitting on the selections of centers Nico Hischier and Jack Hughes with the first overall picks in 2017 and 2019.
Unlike the 76ers, who are on track for a sixth straight postseason appearance, Harris hasn’t found the same level of success with the Devils. New Jersey has made the playoffs just once — in 2017-18 — under Harris’ ownership, and it didn’t last long: the Devils were bounced in the first round. That said, this season, the Devils are 29-12-3 entering Wednesday’s action — the third-best record in the league.
With both teams, Harris and his ownership group have largely allowed coaches and executives the time to prove themselves. The 76ers have had five different lead executives and three coaches over the last 12 years. The Devils, by contrast, have had three general managers and six coaches — including two “co-coaches” in 2014-15 and an interim in 2019-20 — over the last 10 years. But Harris has made abrupt changes when he felt they were needed: He fired former 76ers general manager Tony DiLeo after just one season to hire Hinkie.
Harris, meanwhile, has long been interested in acquiring an NFL team.
His group was involved in trying to buy the Broncos, going so far as to tour Denver’s facility and meeting with several members of the organization before Walmart heir Rob Walton purchased the team. According to the Philly Voice, Harris and his company have “collected a wealth of data on the Commanders’ situation, but the line of dialogue has been nowhere close to the same, with some characterizing the contact as nonexistent.”
Before that, Harris and his business partner, David Blitzer, purchased a minority stake — reportedly worth less than 5% — in the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2020. The two men have also dipped into the soccer market as both have minority stakes in Crystal Palace F.C., an English Premier League team.
The Commanders in particular could have a special connection to Harris. The businessman, who built his wealth in the private equity world by co-founding Apollo Global Management, grew up in Chevy Chase, Maryland, and went to The Field School in the District.
Of course, Snyder is also from the Washington area. And that hasn’t helped how his ownership has been viewed.
• Matthew Paras can be reached at mparas@washingtontimes.com.
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