‘The city was yearning’: Josh Harris pushes to revive the Commanders

Josh Harris, a little over a month into owning the Washington Commanders, still sounds perplexed by some of the requests that have come across his desk. His facial expression is a mix of disbelief and amusement. A new clock for the practice field? Done. Bigger hot tubs for players? Sure thing. 

“I’m like, ‘All right, stop,’” Mr. Harris laughs. “This is a pro team. Just get what you need.” 

The Commanders, under the last owner, didn’t always resemble a professional team. Before Mr. Harris purchased the franchise for $6.05 billion from Dan Snyder, scandals and losing had made the club a punchline. But as another NFL season kicks off Thursday, the Commanders enter the year with hope that perception is starting to change. 

In the nearly seven weeks since he took over, Mr. Harris and his partners have made notable progress toward rekindling interest in a franchise that had seen its fanbase wither under Mr. Snyder. Sunday’s home opener, for instance, against the Arizona Cardinals is sold out. The Commanders have added thousands of new season ticket holders. In their latest bid to woo fans back, ownership announced $40  million in upgrades coming to FedEx Field.

There have been plenty of other positive signs. Big-name sponsors have returned to the Commanders, with Verizon and Anheuser-Busch inking deals. Politicians across the region are openly discussing negotiations on a new stadium.

The new owner at the center of it all, meanwhile, has methodically set about proving, one handshake at a time, that he’s a different kind of billionaire than the reclusive Snyder.

Mr. Harris has greeted fans at training camp, bought rounds of beers for the faithful at bars and this preseason stood in the stands with the rest of the crowd during a game in Cleveland.

If it feels like a strategic rebuke of Mr. Snyder, who increasingly receded from the limelight as controversies mounted, that’s because it is.

Mr. Harris, without acknowledging his predecessor, said a change in approach was warranted.

“I think the city was yearning for someone they could believe in,” Mr. Harris told The Washington Times. “I think it’s very important. I said I was going to be here. It’s a lot. I’m here a lot. … That was part of the bargain that I made with the city. 

“Yeah, I felt it was really something I needed to do.”

Winning back the fans

The day after Mr. Harris’ introductory press conference at FedEx Field in July, the new owner, several of his partners and the team’s brass met for an 8 a.m. video call to discuss plans for the coming season. It didn’t matter that it was a Saturday. There was a lot of work to be done. 

“We have a really short window to deliver an elevated experience,” said Commanders limited partner Mark Ein, one of Mr. Harris’ 20 business partners with the franchise.

“We’re like, ‘OK … Let’s go. Let’s go. Let’s go,’” Mr. Harris said.

Mr. Harris officially taking over the Commanders allowed the group to put plans into motion — NFL rules prevented Mr. Harris from full access until the deal was complete. But in reality, the process started months earlier. Mr. Ein said that within an hour of the Commanders announcing they were exploring a sale last November, Mr. Harris gave him a call to measure his interest in pursuing their beloved childhood team. 

Mr. Harris, a 58-year-old private equity executive who also owns the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers and NHL’s New Jersey Devils, was no stranger to sports franchises, and the Burgundy and Gold had long been on his radar. Mr. Ein remembered attending a Washington game with Mr. Harris a few years ago for him to explore the possibility of buying a minority stake in the team.

So when Mr. Harris, months after striking out on a bid for the Denver Broncos, heard about the Commanders, the Chevy Chase native said he saw it as “too big of an opportunity to ignore.” Mr. Harris spent the next eight months trying to finalize a deal, as well as mapping out his vision to turn the franchise around. 

By selling out Week 1, Mr. Harris’ group has checked off a key benchmark on their roadmap for reviving a franchise. The sellout is the team’s first since Week 3 of last season— when the Philadelphia Eagles and their fans invaded FedEx Field. Even those inside the Commanders organization admit it’s been a while since the stands were full of burgundy-and-gold jerseys instead of the opposing team’s colors.

“That hasn’t happened in a long time,” team President Jason Wright said.

But Sunday is shaping up as a new beginning — and a lot of that excitement is based on the simple fact that Mr. Harris is not Mr. Snyder. 

Jamie Mottram, the owner of Breaking T, a sports apparel company, said two of his company’s highest-selling shirts this year were related to designs created around the sale. Those shirts — “Burgundy and Sold” and “I Survived the Snyder Era” — ranked first and fourth among his company’s best e-commerce sellers. The other merchandise to round out the top five was all championship-related.

“The sale of the Commanders from a merch standpoint for us was about on par for a championship-level event, like the (Denver) Nuggets or Georgia winning the College Football (National Championship),” Mr. Mottram said. “That type of enthusiasm around it.

“As a fan (of the Commanders), it’s up there in my top five moments.”

Building a contender

As much as Mr. Harris has focused on the Commanders’ business and their fans in the early stages of his tenure, his ownership group will ultimately be judged on whether he can make Washington a perennial threat once again.

Mr. Harris’ ownership of the 76ers and the Devils provides insight into how he might help accomplish that goal. Mr. Harris’ teams have a history of prioritizing sports science, relying on analytics and making the kinds of deep investments some analysts see as critical to fielding a winning product.

In Philadelphia, the Harris-led 76ers instituted “The Process” — an innovative, polarizing strategy that constituted gutting the roster for a multi-year rebuild. The Devils also prioritized adding talent through the draft, building out a young core that finished with the NHL’s third-best record last season.

But his teams’ successes have had ceilings. The 76ers, for example, have made the playoffs in each of the last six years but haven’t advanced past the second round in that span. The Devils, also coming off a second-round postseason exit, have made the playoffs only twice in Mr. Harris’ 10 years of ownership.

Asked if he’s surprised he has yet to win a championship in the NBA or NHL, Mr. Harris instead focuses on how hard it can be to win. Part of that, he says, requires luck — pointing out that fortune can literally change on the bounce of a ball. Mr. Harris doesn’t bring up the moment directly at first, but he’s referring to Kawhi Leonard’s Game 7 buzzer-beater in 2019 that bounced around the rim multiple times before going in to eliminate the 76ers. 

Leonard’s Raptors went on to win the title. 

“If that shot had gone in the wrong direction, we probably should have and would have won the NBA championship that year,” Mr. Harris said. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

But Mr. Harris has another point, one he believes is just as important. When something as consequential as Leonard’s shot happens, the onus is on the owner to properly react. It required him to gauge the feedback of players, coaches, executives and fans. He had to assess whether he wanted to make changes. “There’ll be calls to do all kinds of things,” he said. “You have to try to make thoughtful decisions.”

Ironically, that summer resulted in arguably Mr. Harris’ biggest misstep during his 12 years of owning the 76ers. Philadelphia decided to let Jimmy Butler go in free agency rather than pay him a five-year, $190 million contract, instead using that freed-up cap space to sign center Al Horford, acquire Josh Richardson in Butler’s sign-and-trade deal and retain Tobias Harris. Horford and Richardson were traded after a year. Butler has since appeared in two NBA Finals with the Miami Heat. 

Marc Lasry, the former co-owner of the Milwaukee Bucks who has been friends with Mr. Harris for around 20 years, said the 76ers owner bounced back after coming out on the short end of the Jimmy Butler deal. 

Mr. Lasry said Mr. Harris is “great” at recognizing when he’s made a mistake. 

“Obviously, in retrospect, he should have kept Jimmy,” Mr. Lasry said. “I think if he had to do it over again with what he knows now and what he’s learned, he would have kept Jimmy. And I think one of the things that is really beneficial if you’re a Commanders fan is Josh doesn’t mind admitting if he’s made a mistake. 

“If he’s made a mistake, he’s going to fix it, and he’s going to fix it right away.”

Mr. Lasry also knows how much of a hands-on approach Mr. Harris can take when owning a team. During the 2014 NBA draft, Mr. Lasry’s Bucks held the second overall pick with the 76ers right behind them at No. 3. That year, Mr. Harris called Mr. Lasry because he wanted to know whether the Bucks were leaning toward drafting forward Jabari Parker or center Joel Embiid. Mr. Lasry said Mr. Harris made no secret of his team’s interest in Embiid and wanted to gauge Milwaukee’s interest in trading back.

Mr. Lasry, being a friend, told him he had nothing to worry about because Milwaukee planned on taking Parker. But recalling the interaction all these years later, Mr. Lasry appreciated Mr. Harris’ honesty. They were able to build a trust that’s rare to find among owners competing to win, Mr. Lasry said. 

“I think Josh will have that relationship with a few of the owners in the NFL because he knows them from other sports,” Mr. Lasry said. “And he’s built relationships with them so that if he wants a certain player, I think depending on who the person is, he’ll tell them, ‘Look, we’d like that player. We’d like to trade for him.’”

In sports, an owner’s involvement level can quickly make fans uneasy. Mr. Snyder alienated the team’s supporters by demanding executives sign high-priced, washed-up veterans. Former Washington coach Jay Gruden famously bemoaned how Mr. Snyder would “come off his yacht” to dictate draft picks. 

Mr. Harris can sympathize with that concern, understanding the dynamic of businessmen buying their way into the realm of sports. He joked that if Joe Gibbs came to him wanting to run his finance company, “I would look at him like he had two heads.” Instead, Mr. Harris laid out a simple goal: Have the best people work on your behalf.

Mr. Harris said he’ll be involved with “very big” decisions and hold people accountable. But there’s a balance, he adds.

“I don’t want to micromanage the football team,” Mr. Harris said. “If you’re asking me for, if we’re talking about massive dollars and extension, then I’m going to want to hear a lot about it before we do it and really push on it and try to develop, ask a lot of questions.”

Work to be done

Sitting in an open-air suite, Mr. Harris has to raise his voice so he can still be heard as the speakers blast music through the newly renovated sound system at FedEx Field.

The upgraded speakers are part of a series of differences at the stadium this year, changes that Harris and his group hope draw people back to games.

After finishing with the league’s worst attendance a year ago, Harris and his group have committed to a $40 million investment in the suburban Maryland stadium. That money is already being spent on fixing broken-down infrastructure, renovating suites and updating imagery around the stadium. Mr. Harris said the improvements aren’t a fix-all for an older stadium, but said there are “a thousand things” to improve. 

Mr. Harris’ financial commitment to the stadium was one of his first major acts as owner. But the commitment was also made with the understanding that FedEx Field needed improvements — in part because the Commanders’ search for a new stadium has effectively started over. 

Mr. Harris said building a new venue by 2027 — when the lease expires at FedEx Field — is “aggressive.” A leaked document from Mr. Harris’ group during the sales process suggested a more realistic timetable for a stadium could be 2031. But since taking over, Mr. Harris has spent part of his time meeting with local politicians and hiring a consultant (Thad Sheely) to help the Commanders find a new home. 

“We have momentum now,” Mr. Harris said. 

Building a new stadium isn’t the only long-term priority. At some point, Mr. Harris and his group will have to declare whether they’re willing to commit to another rebrand. Mr. Wright said in a local radio interview last week that the franchise was not considering a return to its former Redskins moniker, but stuck to the company line when asked about the possibility of another name change. Mr. Wright maintained there are other priorities for ownership at the moment, declining to definitively say one way or another. 

Mr. Harris will also spend this coming season evaluating the futures of key figures like coach Ron Rivera and Mr. Wright. The owner expressed confidence in both, saying that he hopes to work with each of them “for a long time.” But performance will matter. Rivera, in particular, has made the playoffs only once in three seasons, and the Commanders have yet to have a winning record under him. 

Rivera and Mr. Harris have met for a series of conversations that involve both men outlining their vision and expectations for the team. Rivera has enjoyed their interactions, as well as Mr. Harris’ willingness to invest. The coach noted Mr. Harris’ “immediate response” in helping upgrade the team’s locker rooms, add new equipment in the training room and weight room and update the team’s technology with new iPads.

“A lot of things we needed to get taken care of are finally being done for us,” Rivera said.

Mr. Harris hasn’t been fazed by all the work required. He said he felt that people would respond if he and his group “did the right things.” And so far, he said he believes that’s what is happening.

“Sometimes just change helps,” Mr. Harris said. “I’ve done this. I really feel like I’m well-suited to get going here and do this.”