“This is truly the biggest achievement in my business career and a historic moment for the entire Black community,” Johnson wrote on Twitter. “Talk about God’s perfect timing. This was the right organization for me to be a part of given it’s global appeal, history of winning, and the diverse fanbase and DMV.”
Harris’s group prevailed in a process in which Steve Apostolopoulos, a Canadian commercial real estate developer and private equity executive, and Tilman Fertitta, the owner of the NBA’s Houston Rockets, entered bids. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who owns The Washington Post, used a New York investment firm, Allen & Company, to evaluate a possible bid but never made one, clearing the way for Harris’s group to reach an unsigned, nonexclusive agreement with Snyder in April. Harris and Snyder signed an exclusive deal May 12, more than six months after the Commanders announced in November that Snyder and his wife, Tanya, the franchise’s co-CEO, had retained an investment bank to consider offers for the team.
“This franchise is part of who I am and who I’ve become as a person,” Harris said Thursday. “But being a fan is not enough. To be successful, we understand that we need to win championships, create a positive impact on the community and create incredible memories and great experiences for our fan base, much like I had as a youth growing up in Washington. … A new era of Washington football is here. It’s time to get to work.”
In Ashburn, the team’s headquarters hummed with preparation for training camp. At a nearby brewery, fans gathered in anticipation of the vote’s announcement, many wearing gear that read “Sell the Team” or “Burgundy & Sold” or “I survived the Dan Snyder Era 1999-2023.” At the Bullpen bar near Nationals Park, a group of fans cheered the announcement of the news.
The NFL finance committee initially raised concerns about the structure of Harris’s deal, believing it to be above the NFL’s $1.1 billion debt limit for franchise acquisitions. But Harris agreed to make the necessary adjustments, and he and Rales excitedly left an in-person meeting with the finance committee June 7 at the NFL’s offices in Manhattan with their part of the transaction all but done. The league informed owners two days later to reserve two dates for a prospective special league meeting to consider and potentially approve the sale, then later settled on the July 20 option.
The finance committed voted, 7-0, in a remote meeting Monday, with one member of the committee not participating, to recommend approval of the deal to the other owners. The eight-owner committee met again Thursday before the full ownership meeting. The meetings took place at the same hotel, the JW Marriott alongside the Mall of America, at which the NFL held a special league meeting last August for the owners to ratify the Broncos sale.
The final obstacle to the completion of the process was cleared when attorneys for the NFL and Daniel Snyder reached an agreement resolving the remaining legal issues that threatened to complicate the approval and closing of the sale, two people with knowledge of those deliberations said Monday. The Snyder family had been unwilling to indemnify the league and the other owners for legal liability arising from the lawsuit filed against the NFL by former Las Vegas Raiders coach Jon Gruden, people familiar with the situation said last week. The terms of the resolution between Snyder and the NFL on that issue remain unclear.
Gruden resigned in October 2021 after the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times published emails sent to the team account of Bruce Allen, Washington’s former team president, in which Gruden used racist, homophobic and misogynistic language over approximately seven years of correspondence while he worked for ESPN. The emails were gathered as part of a previous investigation of the Commanders’ workplace conducted by attorney Beth Wilkinson.
The NFL has denied leaking the emails. Snyder “already testified under oath before the Oversight Committee that he neither leaked the Gruden emails nor directed or authorized anyone to do so and does not know who did so,” a person familiar with the communications between the Commanders and the league said last week of the team’s view.
In addition to the two NFL probes, Snyder and the Commanders were investigated by the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability (then called the House Committee on Oversight and Reform) and the attorneys general of D.C., Maryland and Virginia. A federal investigation in the Eastern District of Virginia reportedly is ongoing.
The NFL announced in July 2021, following Wilkinson’s investigation, that the Commanders had been fined $10 million and that Tanya Snyder would assume control of the franchise’s daily operations for an unspecified period. Wilkinson began her work a year earlier, after the publication of The Post’s first investigation into the team’s workplace.
Wilkinson initially was hired by Daniel Snyder and the team, but the NFL assumed oversight of that investigation after a second Post report on the team’s workplace culture detailed allegations made by another 25 female former employees.
White’s investigation began in February 2022 after Tiffani Johnston, a former cheerleader and marketing manager for the team, told members of Congress that Snyder harassed her at a team dinner, putting his hand on her thigh and pressing her toward his limo. Snyder denied the accusations, calling the allegations directly against him “outright lies.” That April, the Oversight Committee detailed allegations of financial improprieties by the team and Snyder in a letter to the Federal Trade Commission. The Commanders denied the allegations.
In June 2022, The Post reported details of an employee’s claim that Snyder sexually assaulted her during a flight on his private plane in April 2009. Later that year, the team agreed to pay the employee, whom it fired, $1.6 million in a confidential settlement. In a 2020 court filing, Snyder called the woman’s claims “meritless.”
League leaders and other NFL owners hope that Harris’s group will be able to restore the reputation of a team that once was regarded as being among the sport’s flagship franchises.
“They want to put that franchise where they believe it belongs, where it’s respected not just in the community but worldwide,” Goodell said. “And they’re committed to that.”
Harris takes control of the team just before the Commanders are scheduled to open their training camp next week. He is expected to retain Jason Wright as team president and to keep the franchise’s business and football staffs basically intact, at least initially. But while Harris and his investment partners take some time to evaluate staffers and the team’s operations, they plan to jump immediately into the task of attempting to repair the franchise’s relationship with its fan base. The new owners also inherit the job of trying to secure funding and choose a location in D.C., Maryland or Virginia for a new stadium.
“As someone who grew up in Washington, I know how important that franchise is to that community,” Goodell said. “And the franchise, I know, is in good hands with this group. We’re thrilled to have them.”
Harris is scheduled to be in the D.C. area Friday and expected to participate in a news conference as part of a fan event at FedEx Field.
“My mom is in Washington, my friends, where I grew up,” Harris said Thursday. “She’s still there. … Yeah, I have a lot going on. But, you know, this is incredibly important right now for this city. And I’m going to be remembered for what I do in Washington. It’s not lost on me. And so I’m all in.”
