Chelsea co-owner Behdad Eghbali could be a 'dark-horse candidate' to take on the NFL's Washington Commanders.
The Commanders are up for sale by owner Dan Snyder after a controversial period as the club's custodian. Snyder is reportedly looking for a whopping £5.7 billion for the NFL franchise and reports claim he has also put his Maryland home up for sale.
Eghbali, a cofounder of the Clearlake Capital private equity firm that co-owns Chelsea as part of a consortium with Todd Boehly, has been tipped as a potential Snyder replacement. The Washington radio station WJLA, an ABC affiliate in the United States of America, report that Eghbali has already attempted to buy part of the Commanders back in 2020 and could resurrect his plans.
It is claimed that Eghbali and business partner Jose Feliciano were interested in buying the Denver Broncos last year and tried to buy 40 per cent of the Commanders two years ago before a sale was blocked.
If Eghbali tries again to buy the Commanders, it would be another monster deal after the £4.25bn purchase of Chelsea from Roman Abramovich last year.
Clearlake Capital have spent big since their purchase of Chelsea, overseeing two summer transfer windows and the sacking of Thomas Tuchel and subsequent arrival of Graham Potter.
Eghbali has previously spoken about the contrast between the media rights revenue between football teams and NFL sides.
"One interesting data point, is cumulative market cap, use the Forbes value of NFL teams probably 150-155 billion, the Premier League, La Liga, France, Italy I think you're probably 30 billion, fanbases of maybe 3-4 billion globally compared to 200 million and that's being generous to the NFL," he said.
"A league and a sport that is optimised, clearly not everything is created equal but a four billion fanbase on a cumulative market gap of 30 billion maybe and cumulative media revenue of five or six billion against 20 for the NFL on 20 times the fanbase globally."
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