What happens to the Washington Commanders now that Jeff Bezos has withdrawn his bid to buy the franchise?
The Amazon founder has made it clear that he has no intention of continuing with his bid to acquire the NFL franchise after its owner rejected his offer to buy it.
Mired in controversy, the Washington Commanders are on the market. The problem is that the current owner - the reason for said controversy - appears to be selective about who he is willing to sell his team to. As for who hasn’t made his cut, we can now include one of the Top 5 richest men in the world, Jeff Bezos.
Jeff Bezos pulls out of bid to buy Washington Commanders
According to his own comments, Amazon founder and executive chairman, Jeff Bezos, won’t be continuing with his effort to purchase the Washington Commanders. First reported by the Washington Post, Bezos who owns the Post indicated that he has no intention of bidding for the NFL franchise. This of course now clears the way for others who have been involved in the bidding process such as billionaire, Josh Harris - co-founder of Apollo Global Management, which owns Yahoo.
Why did Daniel Snyder reject Jeff Bezos’s bid
To be fair, Bezos’ position isn’t surprising after current Commanders owner, Daniel Snyder, had declared that he had no desire to sell to Bezos, citing “his disdain for The Post and its coverage of him and his team,” at the time. As mentioned above, Bezos is the owner of the Washington Post. The reason that is significant is because it was the Post who first reported accounts of Snyder’s inappropriate work place conduct, which included allegations of misogyny and racism to say the least. Apparently feeling that he was not cast in a favorable light, the Commanders owner and his family took the stance that they had no interest in selling the franchise to the Amazon founder, which brings us to where we are. It’s interesting to note, that despite Snyder’s position, Bezos had still contracted the services of the investment firm, Allen & Company to take a closer look at the deal, however, it now appears he’s had his fill.
What happens with the Washington Commanders now?
With the third richest man in the world now out of the running, there are reportedly two other bids on the table. To be clear, Snyder’s asking price for the franchise is currently $6 billion. To that end, we’ve got the aforementioned bid of Harris’s group which also includes NBA Hall of Fame inductee and Los Angeles Lakers legend, Magic Johnson as well as the Danaher Corporation’s co-founder and fellow billionaire, Mitchell Rales. Then, we’ve also got a bid from Canadian billionaire, Steve Apostolopoulos, who built his wealth through real estate and the management of equity.
According to the latest reports, Harris’ group is favored to seal the deal and even more so now that Bezos has seemingly pulled out of the race. With that being said, there has been no official word that Snyder and any of the two above-mentioned prospective buyers are anywhere close to finalizing an agreement. What remains clear, is that should pen be put to paper on a deal, it will be the biggest sale of a franchise in history. The current record is held by the Denver Broncos, who were sold to the Walton family for a not so small $4.65 billion just last year.