In Washington, D.C., fans are leaning out of their office windows and cheering themselves hoarse. Sports radio is playing “Celebration” by Kool & The Gang. Did a local team just win a championship? No, something bigger has happened. After a 24-year tenure that can only be described as The Bad, the Worse and the Ugly, Washington Commanders owner Dan Snyder is reportedly selling his NFL team. Perhaps not since the 2011 Arab Spring has there been such an outcry of relief at the end of an era of autocracy.
After a 24-year tenure that can be described as The Bad, the Worse and the Ugly, Washington Commanders owner Dan Snyder has finally been pushed out by the NFL and is selling the team.
It would take a book to fully outline all of Snyder’s reported pettiness, cruelty and overall awfulness. In fact, in my 2012 book “Bad Sports: How Owners are Ruining the Games We Love,” I dedicated a whole chapter to him. His was always a noxious tenure, but we had no idea how dreadful it would get. My book is painfully out of date.
Even though people in D.C. are cheering his departure, it would be wrong to characterize Snyder’s exit as punishment. He is on the verge of selling the team to a group led by hedge fund manager Josh Harris for $6.05 billion, which is $5.25 billion more than the $800 million he originally paid for it. Such a payout feels obscene. After years of wretched stewardship, Snyder gets a platinum parachute.
At least 75% of NFL owners would have to approve of the sale, but it’s unlikely that Snyder would be selling the team if the other owners weren’t eager to see him go. Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay said last year “there’s merit to remove” Snyder from NFL ownership, and there are reports that the league’s other owners dislike him.
When I moved here as a young man, this team was everything; every bus stop and barbershop was a site of chatter about the latest D.C. football news. And when Snyder purchased the team, the waiting list for tickets was…
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