Since he took ownership of the NFL team in the nation’s capital in 1999, Washington Commanders owner Daniel Snyder has overseen one of the NFL’s most toxic workplace environments, and in recent days. other NFL owners have spoken out against Snyder as never before.
Now, per Mike Ozanian of Forbes, Snyder may be looking to see what he could get for the franchise in a sale.
From the article (subscription):
According to a person familiar with the process, Snyder already has at least four calls from groups interested in buying the team. Snyder and his bankers are exploring all options and a transaction could be for the entire NFL team or a minority stake.
Neither the Commanders nor Bank of America, which has handled such notable team sales as the purchase of the Los Angeles Clippers by Steve Ballmer in 2014, would comment.
This could be an outright sale; it could also be a cash grab for the new stadium that Snyder has wanted for a log time.
On Wednesday morning, the Commanders released this statement:
From the #Commanders: https://t.co/qxr3gQ5iwJ pic.twitter.com/uFJLXogmGx
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) November 2, 2022
So, what does this all mean?
Snyder might be running out of rope with other team owners.
During the mid-October owner’s meetings, Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay spoke as clearly as possible about the fact that the league would be better off if Snyder sold the team by choice, or by force.
And there it is… Jim Irsay says #Commanders owner Dan Snyder should be removed as owner #NFL … added he thinks they will get the votes eventually … but today though #SportsBiz pic.twitter.com/CElZHk8WIS
— Jabari Young (@JabariJYoung) October 18, 2022
“Some of the things I’ve heard doesn’t represent us at all,” Irsay said. “I want the American public to know what we’re about as owners…You can’t shy away from the fact that, I believe it’s in the best interest of the National Football League that we look at this squarely in the eyes and deal with it.”
There was a swift response from a Commanders spokesperson:
Statement from a #Commanders spokesperson on Jim Irsay’s comments about removing Dan Snyder. pic.twitter.com/P3vAUjQJG3
— Tom Pelissero (@TomPelissero) October 18, 2022
A 24-vote majority is required for a removal or a forced sale, but Snyder has not done anything to make friends among his fellow owners. Just a few days before those meetings, ESPN’s Don Van Natta Jr., Seth Wickersham and Tisha Thompson released a bombshell report in which it was indicated that Snyder was trying to hold on to his stake by gathering dirt on other owners.
The ESPN report, written after interviews with more than 30 sources, indicates that “the fear of reprisal that Snyder has instilled in his franchise, poisoning it on the field and off, has expanded to some of his fellow owners. Multiple owners and league and team sources say they’ve been told that Snyder instructed his law firms to hire private investigators to look into other owners — and Goodell.”
The sources asked for anonymity due to fear of reprisal on multiple fronts.
Most sources declined to go on the record for this story; Goodell has warned owners that they could be fined millions of dollars for leaking to reporters. Snyder “thinks he has enough on all of them,” says a former longtime senior Commanders executive. “He thinks he’s got stuff on Roger.” Another former Commanders executive routinely called Snyder “the most powerful owner in the NFL” because of what he knows, a source says.
Several owners say that they see the threats about damaging dossiers as a desperate tactic intended to scare owners from voting to remove Snyder. “He’s backed into a corner,” says a veteran owner who says he’s aware Snyder has gathered dirt on some owners. “He’s behaving like a mad dog cornered.”
Also from the report:
Indeed, it galls some owners and league and team executives that the NFL has been in lockstep with Washington on many fronts, “propping up” the franchise, in the words of one owner, by burying attorney Beth Wilkinson’s report about the team’s toxic workplace last year, and by helping the Commanders avoid penalties for repeated violations of the Rooney Rule. It’s clear, one owner says, that Goodell “doesn’t want to touch this.”
“This is what happens when you get into business with bad people,” the owner says about Snyder. “They know he’ll burn their houses down.”
The most repugnant aspect of Snyder’s tenure as owner is the wide-ranging culture of intimidation and sexual harassment that that has gone on for years, and caught the interest of the House Committee for Oversight and Reform. Goodell has steadfastly refused to release the findings from investigative reports due to a “common interest agreement” between Snyder and the NFL.
So, with the heat increasing for Snyder, the threats of kompromat.
In recent months, Snyder has told close confidants that his private investigators dug up incriminating information about Goodell, other unnamed league office executives and an unknown number of owners. League and ownership sources say there’s lots of gossip and speculation about what investigators could have unearthed, but some wonder whether Snyder actually has anything at all and is bluffing as a scare tactic.
More than the fear of leaked information — like the leaked information that essentially ended Jon Gruden’s career — could be the fact that the Commanders aren’t making enough money to allow the other owners to overlook Snyder’s actions anymore.
“His gate is the lowest in the league, his revenues are significantly low and trending lower,” a veteran owner says. “He is costing his fellow owners significant money.” Under Snyder’s watch, FedEx Field has reduced capacity from more than 90,000 seats to around 64,000 this year. Although the team spokesperson said the team’s business prospects have turned around, including a doubling of season-ticket holders and a 30% increase in sponsorships, owners said they haven’t seen evidence of improvement.
Multiple ownership and team sources complain that ticket sales for about half those remaining seats are controlled by ticket brokers, the highest ratio in the NFL. “He’s a partner — and he’s not pulling his end of the partnership,” a senior executive of a rival team says.
One owner said in the ESPN report that if Snyder could get a new stadium built, this might all go away, but even that is under serious danger. Defensive coordinator Jack Del Rio’s comments about the January 6, 2021 riots at the Capitol Building as a mere “dust-up” — comments for which Del Rio had to apologize and was fined — had local lawmakers insisting that such a stadium wasn’t going to happen until the kind of culture re-boot promised by the team and the league actually took place.
A new stadium could provide the right deodorant.
In May, it was reported that the Commanders paid $100 million for approximately 200 acres in Virginia, a move that is believed to be the first step in a new stadium for the team.
Per ESPN’s John Keim, the plans for the land are comprehensive.
According to a source, their plans include a 60,000-seat domed stadium — so it can be used throughout the year — as well as: the team’s practice facility; an amphitheater that seats between 15,000 and 20,000; a small indoor music arena; high-end retail shops; bars and restaurants and residential living. The roof would be translucent and the stadium’s facade could change colors — it would be white during the day and, for example, burgundy at night.
The Commanders currently play their home games at FedEx Field in Landover, Maryland, which opened in 1997. The state of Maryland has said that it would commit $400 million to develop the land around FedEx Field, and the Commanders have kept their options open.
But after so many negative situations in which the Commanders, former Washington Football Team, and former Washington Redskins have created and forwarded hostile work environments are starting to complicate the process.
Defensive coordinator Jack Del Rio’s comments about the January 6, 2021 riots at the Capitol Building as a mere “dust-up” — comments for which Del Rio had to apologize and was fined — had local lawmakers insisting that such a stadium wasn’t going to happen until the kind of culture re-boot promised by the team and the league actually took place.
“I think at this point, I don’t think there ever will be a vote,” Virginia Senator Jeremy McPike said in June, of the 200 acres. “I think they’re gonna be counting heads on the numbers, the number of people voting yes or no, and my guess is the vote’s probably off the table.
“I think this is the nail in the coffin. I think you’re gonna see more legislators now that have already been cooling off to it just shake their heads and walk away. I think that’s where we’re at now.”
So, when the Commanders talk about “transactions.” it could mean that the team is looking into sponsorship ventures to make up for any self-inflicted shortfall.
Snyder should be forced to sell, but will that happen?
Snyder has long been a black eye for the NFL, but the other owners have been willing to ignore the stink as long as Snyder’s team was fiscally favorable. Now, Snyder feels pressure like never before, and it’s more because he can’t do what owners generally do to impress other owners — extract as much public money as possible to build new stadiums.
Snyder did not make himself available for the June House Oversight Committee hearings on the longtime culture of Snyder’s team that was rife with sexual harassment and emotional abuse. Snyder has said that he was too “hands off” in his operation of the team, and predictably, has sworn to do better.
In a Washington Post article written by Nicki Jhabvala, Liz Clarke, and Mark Maske, it was revealed via testimony related to those hearings that Snyder was nowhere near as “hands-off” as he had claimed.
Several former team employees said in sworn depositions that Snyder was not only aware of the team’s culture, but that he actively participated in it.
“Mr. Snyder himself fostered the Commanders’ toxic workplace,” Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.), the committee’s chairwoman, said at the outset of a June 22 hearing, summarizing the committee’s findings.
The evidence for Maloney’s assertion was laid out in 750 pages of sworn depositions and transcribed interviews with three former team executives and a former cheerleaders captain, which the committee released in conjunction with its public hearing to question Snyder and Goodell about its preliminary findings. The documents include accounts of being ridiculed and demeaned by Snyder, watching other executives do the same to lower-level employees, witnessing the harassment of female employees who “were treated like a piece of meat,” as one said, and being asked to lie and engage in unethical behavior as part of their jobs.
The report indicates that during the House’s eight-month investigation, “Snyder waged a ‘shadow campaign’ through lawyers and private investigators to undermine her work, discredit former employees and suspected accusers, and shift blame for his role in the team’s toxic culture.”
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, who testified remotely, said that the team engaged in “unprofessional and unacceptable in numerous respects: bullying, widespread disrespect toward colleagues, use of demeaning language, public embarrassment, and harassment.”
Goodell also insisted that the Commanders had righted the ship.
“The most recent independent workplace report, which we have shared with the Committee, confirms that an entirely new, highly skilled, and diverse management team is in place and that there has been a ‘substantial transformation of [the team’s] culture, leadership and Human resources practices,” he said. “To be clear, the workplace at the Commanders today bears no resemblance to the workplace that has been described to this committee.”
The sworn depositions paint a very different picture of the Redskins’/Football Team;s/Commanders’ history.
From the WaPo report:
During his deposition June 7, which lasted more than six hours, Dave Pauken, the team’s chief operating officer from 2001 to 2006, likened the workplaces dynamic to “an abusive relationship” and placed Snyder at the heart of it.
“The culture was how Dan wanted the culture at the time,” said Pauken, who testified under oath after being subpoenaed by the panel. “ … I think that in the end, it all stems from the owner, Dan Snyder.”
Pauken said he regretted many things he did at Snyder’s behest during his employment, such as not challenging the owner’s insistence on firing female employees for consensual, in-office sexual relationships but not sanctioning the male executives or players involved.
There’s a lot more.
Brian Lafemina, a former chief operating officer and president of business operations, was subpoenaed by the committee, and thus legally required to testify under oath.
During questioning on April 8, Lafemina related an anecdote that undercut Snyder’s claim that he had been unaware of workplace misconduct and took swift action once informed. Lafemina testified that, in a 2018 conversation, he informed Snyder about a female employee’s credible complaint about misconduct by play-by-play announcer Larry Michael.
Snyder “said that Larry was a sweetheart, and that Larry wouldn’t hurt anybody,” Lafemina testified. “ … it was obvious that he was fond of Larry and that he thought that Larry was well intentioned and that he didn’t want anything bad to happen to Larry.”
Damning stuff, and a spokesperson for Snyder issued the following statement:
“Despite Mr. Snyder’s continued apologies and regret for the historical problems that arose at the team, The Washington Post goes out of its way to assail his character and ignore the successful efforts by both Dan and Tanya Snyder, together with Jason Wright and Coach Ron Rivera, for over the past two years to bring about a remarkable transformation to the organization. The Snyders will continue to focus on their league-leading fight to bring greater respect and much-needed diversity and equality to the workplace in the face of constant and baseless attacks from the media and elsewhere.”
The more we know about Snyder’s history, the harder it is to believe that he wasn’t involved in the degradation of franchise culture, and the more difficult it is to swallow Snyder trying to obfuscate that past with recent improvements that Snyder had no choice but to make.
So, it’s now down to two choices for the cornered owner: Make more money, or get out of the house. That’s why any dealings Snyder has with Bank of America in this venture are crucial.
