When it was announced that Washington Commanders owner Dan Snyder was exploring a sale of the franchise, a lot of potential bidders were assumed to line up. And that’s exactly what happened, except now one of them is backing out for a pretty understandable reason.
Bids are due Friday from any potential buyers. According to JP Finlay, as many as seven bidders were expected, including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. While the price tag had been rumored around $6-7 billion, that number may have risen with the recent news that billionaire Matt Ishbia was buying the NBA’s Phoenix Suns and WNBA’s Mercury for $4 billion.
Not so coincidentally, Ishbia was also one of the bidders on the Commanders. However, now that he’s locked up a substantial amount of money in the Suns and Mercury, he’s decided to remove himself from the bidding process for the NFL franchise. Mark Maske of The Washington Post broke the news.
Mat Ishbia is "no longer pursuing the Commanders," a spokesman for him says, after striking a deal this week to buy the NBA's Suns and WNBA's Mercury from Robert Sarver…. https://t.co/0rX9lW8Yce
— MarkMaske (@MarkMaske) December 23, 2022
The former Michigan State basketball player became CEO of United Wholesale Mortgage in 2013 and has an estimated net worth of around $5 billion.
It’s not yet known who else is part of the Commanders’ bidding process but whoever decided to buy the team will likely set a record for a single-team purchase. While a lot of people will be very happy to see Dan Synder leave the NFL, he’ll certainly be walking away with some very full pockets.
[WaPo]
