Ever wondered what a spoiled billionaire kicking at the air like a young child would look like? Dan Snyder is doing it right now. Proverbially at least. Apparently Snyder is blocking Amazon founder Jeff Bezos from buying the Washington Commanders.
It is the adult rich-guy equivalent of, “I’m taking my football and going home.”
It’s petty with a capital “P”.
The Bank of America were hired by Snyder to help with the sale of the team, and they have told Bezos that he will not be allowed to submit a bid.
The reason for the block?
Bezos owns the Washington Post, and the newspaper has been known to write a scathing word or two about the Commanders’ current billionaire cry baby.
The Post have been writing exposés on Snyder for a lot longer than Bezos has been the owner.
They have written things like:
The allegations raised – running from 2006 to 2019 – span most of Snyder’s tenure as owner and fall into two categories: unwelcome overtures or comments of a sexual nature, and exhortations to wear revealing clothing and flirt with clients to close sales deals.
Clearly excerpts such as the above one, don’t help sell tickets. Nor do they endear them to the franchise.
However, that’s not their job and it’s not like the publication is just running amok. These stories have been reported by many of the local news outlets. It’s not some kind of witch hunt.
A story in the NY Post in January indicated that Snyder believes that Bezos mandated the bad publicity to both encourage him to sell the team and to potentially drive the price down.
Snyder seems to have done a pretty good job of conjuring up bad publicity for himself for most of his 20-plus year ownership tenure.
The Amazon mogul bought the post in 201. By that time, the relationship between the paper and Snyder was already pretty sour. There was no talk of Snyder selling the team – there was just repeated boorish behaviour on the billionaire’s part.
Good Match
There’s no denying that Bezos seems a natural fit for the gig. Not only does he own a house in the D.C. metro area, but Amazon’s second headquarters is in Crystal City, Virginia – which is just across the Potomac River.
Amazon also purchased the rights to Thursday Night Football last year.
The reality is that the league itself, and likely many of it’s owners, would love for Bezos to own the team. He sky rockets to the top of the richest owner in football list, and would inevitably raise the value of all other NFL teams in the process.
Decision Looming
The answer may come sooner than later. With the annual owners’ meeting on March 26th, it’s probable that the league would want some sort of resolution by that time. Could the other owners force Snyder out?
Back in October, Colts owner Jim Irsay was very public in expressing that there could potentially be enough votes to remove Snyder. Irsay is not exactly a harbinger of truth and righteousness, but his stance was interesting at the very least.
ESPN also ran a piece late last year on how Snyder had gathered evidence about many NFL owners to block such a thing from ever happening.
Who knows how much truth there is to any of that.
Do you know what is true?
Fans have had it up to their eyeballs with Snyder’s antics.
Sure he could try and pull out of selling the team now.
But a team that has already seen many of it’s faithful disappear, would likely lose all that are left.
And could Roger Goodell and the money-printing machine NFL, really stand for that in one of the largest markets in the United States?
