ASHBURN, Va. — News that Dan Snyder is “considering potential transactions,” including a sale of the Washington Commanders, was met with cheers from longtime fans who have become increasingly frustrated with the controversy off the field and poor play on it.
But a sports finance expert who penned the Forbes article that kicked off Wednesday’s firestorm has a warning for Washington: don’t close the book on Snyder just yet.
“The way I read is, it’s sort of like you're going fishing," said Mike Ozanian, the assistant managing editor at Forbes who has covered sports finance and valuations for decades.
Although Ozanian’s piece on the potential sale of the Commanders is being celebrated as the beginning of the end for Snyder, the author says there are no guarantees that is the eventual outcome.
“You're in a huge ocean -- you put some bait on, you drop the hook, and you want to see what bites,” Ozanian said. “So this could mean, they could sell all of the team, they could sell a small piece of the team to a minority investor, say 10% to 15%.”
Ozanian said a third scenario is Snyder sells a small piece of the team with the understanding the investor has the right to buy the entire team after a number of years.
“It all depends on the interest and the amount of money being offered for the team as I see it,” he said.
Snyder went deeper into debt to buy his out his former minority owners in 2021. Now that Virginia has joined D.C. and Maryland in refusing to give him public financing to build a new stadium, Snyder would have to pay for a new stadium out of his own pocket. Ozanian said this could be a way for the team’s controversial owner to raise capital for a new stadium while still maintaining control of the franchise.
Ozanian recently valued the Washington Commanders franchise at $5.6 billion, which includes Fed Ex Field, the 200 acres it’s built on and the 150 acres in Ashburn where the team’s practice facility and headquarters is located.
But Ozanian said the team could fetch far more on the open market, with an uber wealthy buyer who wants to outbid the competition.
“What they call a whale--that is an incredibly rich person who wants to sort of put an end to the bidding process,” Ozanian said, adding they often pay a sharp premium to win out on the franchise they are bidding on.