The Seattle Seahawks have headed right down to San Francisco to arrange for Sunday’s Tremendous Bowl in opposition to the New England Patriots. Forgive us if visions of deep passes have given approach to speak of deep pockets as reviews preserve rising a couple of potential sale of the staff.
The newest information comes from The Wall Street Journal, which reported Sunday that the NFL and a few staff house owners have run out of endurance with the Seahawks’ possession construction and strain is being utilized to drive a sale.
This follows ESPN’s report final Friday citing sources who mentioned the staff would search a purchaser after Tremendous Bowl LX.
The Allen property and Jody Allen, the sister of late Seahawks proprietor and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, denied the reviews and mentioned the main target was on successful a championship. However the time will come when the staff will go up on the market, as mandated by Paul Allen’s property needs.
With a price ticket anticipated to be within the $8 billion vary, any potential Seahawks sale is destined to be a report breaker. The Washington Commanders bought in 2023 for a then-record $6.05 billion.
So right here’s a line-up of some very rich techies and others with Seattle ties:
- Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, with a internet value of $134.6 billion, is a sports activities pleasant contender. He already owns the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers. Does he have any want for an additional franchise?
- Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has lengthy been floated as a possible purchaser. However Bezos, value $253.2 billion, left for sunny South Florida a couple of years in the past and appears to extra fascinated with tremendous yachts and spacecraft.
- Microsoft co-founder Invoice Gates is value about $105 billion and will do his late good friend Paul Allen a pleasant stable by scooping up the Seahawks for pocket change.
- Present Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has a internet value of $1 billion, so he’d want some assist. However he does have a passion for sports with stakes within the Seattle Sounders FC and the Seattle Orcas.
- Writer and philanthropist MacKenzie Scott has proven how eager she is to spend her billions, although her charitable givings are directed extra towards nonprofits. However a minimum of she nonetheless lives within the Seattle space.
- Melinda French Gates is value $29 billion and will staff with Scott to type one other highly effective women-led possession group on the heels of Jody Allen’s stewardship.
- Zillow co-founder Wealthy Barton has $1 billion to throw into an possession group, too. That’ll barely purchase a home in Seattle, nevertheless it may get a stake within the Seahawks.
- Mobile pioneer Craig McCaw is value about $2 billion. Work the telephones, Craig, you’re gonna want extra money.
- Seattle Mariners majority proprietor John Stanton is one other wi-fi trade pioneer, value about $2.4 billion. Perhaps he’s feeling the sting of watching the Seahawks get again to the Tremendous Bowl after the M’s got here thisclose to their first World Collection journey final fall.
- Valve co-founder and CEO Gabe Newell is value about $11 billion. His online game firm discovered success with “Half-Life.” Would he wish to be half-rich?
- Tanium co-founder and CEO Orion Hindawi is comparatively new to Seattle’s billionaire circles with a internet value of about $1.1 billion. Born and raised within the Bay Space, he’s most likely a 49ers fan.
- Former Starbucks chairman Howard Schultz is … never mind.
The customer may additionally come from outdoors the area.
The NFL requires {that a} controlling proprietor maintain a minimum of a 30% stake in a staff and limits institutional possession, which means non-public fairness companies — now allowed to invest in NFL franchises — can solely play a minority position. That makes a person or family-led possession group the most certainly end result.
ESPN reported that the Seahawks have handed a threshold after which a sale would not require sharing 10% of the proceeds with the state of Washington.
The sale is a part of the lengthy means of divesting most of the belongings and investments that Allen made throughout his lifetime. Allen, who purchased the Seahawks within the late Nineteen Nineties, died in 2018 on the age of 65 after he was identified with a recurrence of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
His buy of the Seahawks is extensively credited with retaining the staff in Seattle after a previous possession group explored relocating the franchise to Southern California. Since his dying, Allen’s property has steadily moved to promote main belongings, together with actual property holdings and, extra not too long ago, advancing the sale process for the NBA’s Portland Path Blazers.
Allen bought the Seahawks in 1997 for about $200 million from earlier proprietor Ken Behring, securing the staff’s residence in Seattle after Behring threatened a transfer to California.
Jody Allen raised the 12 flag on the NFC Championship at Lumen Area, the place the Seahawks beat the Los Angeles Rams to advance to the Tremendous Bowl — the staff’s fourth look and first since 2015.
The Seahawks play the Patriots Sunday at 3:30 p.m. PT.
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