Representatives of Josh Harris’s group are in conversations with the NFL about the approval process for Harris’s $6.05 billion deal to purchase the Washington Commanders from Daniel Snyder, according to three people familiar with the discussions, but Harris cannot have any role in team operations until the deal is ratified by the league’s team owners.
Harris’s group is “actively working with the league on the approval process” and the discussions are “constructive,” one of the people with knowledge of the deliberations said. Another called the conversations typical of those that occur during any NFL franchise sale.
Harris and Snyder have announced a signed, exclusive agreement for Harris and his investors to buy the franchise for what would be an NFL-record price, surpassing the $4.65 billion that a group led by Walmart heir Rob Walton paid last year for the Denver Broncos.
The details of the discussions between Harris’s group and the NFL are not known. The NFL finance committee has raised issues related to Harris’s deal, according to several people familiar with the committee’s deliberations. According to one of those people, the committee believes that Harris’s deal, in its current structure, is well above the league’s $1.1 billion debt limit for franchise acquisitions.
Harris’s group believes the deal complies with the debt limit and all other NFL ownership rules, people connected to the sales process have said.
The deal is being vetted by the eight-owner finance committee and ultimately must be approved by at least 24 of the 32 owners. The owners generally follow whatever recommendation is made by the finance committee. The NFL confirmed Thursday that a ratification vote will not be taken during the league meeting scheduled for Monday and Tuesday in Minneapolis.
Kansas City Chiefs owner Clark Hunt, chairman of the finance committee, has vowed to keep working with the Harris deal to structure it in a way that is acceptable to the committee, a person familiar with the deliberations has said. The owners are eager to see Snyder leave the NFL and would like to make the deal with Harris work if at all possible, several people with direct knowledge of the league’s inner workings and the owners’ views have said.
A person familiar with the committee’s deliberations has described the Harris deal as unusually complex by NFL standards and containing a large number of limited partners. Harris identified a dozen investors, including two families, when he announced the completion of the deal with Snyder, and he said there are others. The deal contains an “earn out” that would provide Snyder with a deferred payment in which the amount would be contingent upon the franchise’s ability to reach specified benchmarks in its business performance, according to five people with knowledge of the terms of the deal. One of them said that payment could be for as much as $200 million of the $6.05 billion sale price.
The Harris group and the Commanders seem eager for the deal to be approved so they can get to work. But they may have to wait for months, if the approval process extends that long. In the meantime, the Commanders must run the franchise without input from the group they hope will be the team’s new owners. The prohibition on Harris having a say in team operations before being approved was confirmed Saturday by a person familiar with the NFL’s inner workings, who said that restriction applies to any franchise sale, and by Commanders President Jason Wright.
Jason Wright on convos about the RFK stadium site: pic.twitter.com/Ec7Uql75E6
— Nicki Jhabvala (@NickiJhabvala) May 20, 2023
“I think if there are major line items that come above a certain level, some major things that need to be done, we’ll talk to Dan and Tanya [Snyder] about it,” Wright said during a flag football clinic at the team’s Ashburn headquarters. “They can broker a conversation [with Harris] potentially on our behalf. But in the meantime, we’re going to keep on operating and hopefully it doesn’t take long at all.”
But while daily operations of the team can proceed as the league and finance committee vet the sale agreement, the Commanders’ search for a new stadium site has paused.
For years, Snyder has unsuccessfully attempted to create a competition among Maryland, Virginia and D.C. and drum up support for a multibillion-dollar stadium and accompanying commercial complex.
He owns the team’s headquarters in Virginia as well as FedEx Field in Landover, where the Commanders are obligated to stay until Sept. 13, 2027. That year was touted as the team’s target for moving into a new stadium during the early part of Wright’s tenure as president. But support from the jurisdictions waned and ultimately sputtered as the team and Snyder became increasingly embroiled in controversy.
Maryland offered a $400 million package to improve the area around FedEx Field but not a new stadium. Virginia tried unsuccessfully to create a stadium authority to oversee the financing and construction of a new facility, but the state’s proposed contribution was whittled to $300 million before the plan was scrapped. The District has so far failed to gain control of the 190-acre site on which RFK Stadium sits from the federal government, and the prospect of a new stadium there has staunch critics on the D.C. Council.
The pending sale of the Commanders has renewed outside interest in the team’s stadium plans. In recent months, the team has ramped up lobbying efforts for the RFK site.
Carter Elliott IV, press secretary for Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D), wrote on Twitter this month that Moore “is committed to continuing this long-standing partnership” with the team and “looks forward to continuing conversations with the Commanders about our vision for the future of the team in Maryland” when the sale is approved.
“For us who have been talking to folks in the community behind the scenes, we’ve known that there’s positive engagement and enthusiasm for the potential, again, across all areas — Maryland, the District and Virginia,” Wright said. “And so because of that, it’s not as surprising to us, but it’s just more of a public discussion now. What I like about it is leaders are articulating a vision that we can get behind because that’s been what we’ve said all along. The best thing that we can do is get behind a vision of local leaders who know how to best develop this community economically and socially. That’s their expertise.”
Wright declined to provide a timetable on the search for a new stadium site and the start of development. Instead, he emphasized that the decision-making over the location and scope of the project will reside with new ownership, which could restart immediately when a sale is finalized.
“I think the fact that Josh has owned pro sports teams and is in the midst of later-stage development discussions around a new venue within Philadelphia, they’re pretty well educated on this, and I think they have strong perspectives,” Wright said. “They know the ecosystem; they know the architects; they know all of that stuff. … It’s more about their strategic vision and what they want to accomplish.”