actorguy1

Basically, Harris group bid 5.8 billion. Dan said "I will only sell if the bid is over $6 Billion". Harris says " My bid is $5.8 billion". Dan replies "Fine, I'll give you a $200 million loan. You only have to pay it all back if the team earns a specific amount over the next few years. It's a win-win. You get the team for 5.8 and I get to pretend I got a bid for over $6 billion. I'm a stable genius!!!" (That last part was artistic interpretation)

For once, the Commanders have the advantage in this category.

Based on Harris Group not gaining ownership until early to mid Summer and their track record (no changes the first 2 years in NJ and Philly), I believe no significant changes will be made to the FO or coaching, no matter the record, until at least January 2024.

This is hilarious!!!

The eight-member NFL finance committee took a look Wednesday at Josh Harris’ massive deal to purchase the Washington Commanders — one so complex it could take longer than initially expected. But in the aftermath of the meeting, sources told Front Office Sports on Thursday that the $6.05 billion package Harris and at least a dozen limited partners put together is inching toward acceptance. FOS reported that there were no red flags in Harris’ proposal, including any that would require a waiver to comply with debt limits or anything contained in the NFL Constitution and Bylaws. Granted, Commanders owner Dan Snyder and Harris haven’t officially entered into a sale agreement. As a result, the operation has progressed down a novel path, with the league reviewing Harris’ proposal as if it were a done deal. That review — which includes vetting the financials and backgrounds of Harris and all his limited partners — is still ongoing. “There’s just a lot to work through,” one source said. There was hope the review process and the finalization would be concluded by the next full ownership meeting scheduled to get underway May 22. While a vote to approve Harris by the NFL owners appears at least somewhat questionable, a source told FOS that the tentative deal between Harris and Snyder is expected to be finalized by those meetings.

It's always a double edged sword for me when this team gets popular. More popular means more prime time games. I hate waiting for them and I hate staying up for them.

The Post seems to be the continuous wet blanket on this sale process.

https://frontofficesports.com/nfl-finance-committee-meets-as-commanders-sale-progresses/ BY A.J. PEREZ MAY 10, 2023 | 09:16 AM URL copied to clipboard Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports Typically, the NFL finance committee meeting today is perfunctory. Each year, the aim is to have all the major items handled ahead of the March owners’ meetings, with only a few issues that haven’t been solved left to mull over in May. But this regularly scheduled meeting before the main meeting in two weeks could clarify the Washington Commanders’ immediate future. Front Office Sports previously reported that the NFL had treated the $6.05 billion bid by a group led by Josh Harris as a done deal — even as those close to the Commanders have said the agreement remains tentative. If this were a normal sale, Harris’ application would have had to be in around March for the finance committee made up of NFL owners to schedule a vote for the main owners meeting. The application — accompanied by a $25,000 check — kicks off the vetting process, which includes the verification of financials and criminal background checks for the potential controlling owner and all the partners of an ownership group. An NFL spokesperson declined to comment when asked Tuesday if Harris’ application is in. A Harris spokesperson and one for the Commanders did the same. But could a full ownership vote be scheduled during today’s meeting? Break out that shrug emoji because those intimately involved have remained mum. Multiple sources told FOS that Harris is expected to take over control of the team in early June. That would mean a vote would have to occur in Minnesota at the main owners’ meetings that run May 22-24. “Seems like things are moving forward with Harris,” one source with knowledge of negotiations told FOS. Three-quarters (24 or more owners) are needed to approve a new owner, and it takes about a week for all the money to be transferred over before the sale becomes official. While not spelled out in the NFL Constitution and Bylaws, this odd Commanders’ sale could be treated as an incomplete transaction. With the backing of NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, the preliminary agreement could be vetted as an official application, one source told FOS. That would mean Harris and his more than a dozen limited partners have been thoroughly vetted by this point. The fact that The Washington Post reported last month that the NFL asked Harris’ group to revise some “minor issues” in their proposal certainly lends credence to the incomplete transaction approach. Exactly why the sale has gone this path isn’t clear. However, the team is still subject to multiple investigations — including one led by former SEC chief Mary Jo White on behalf of the NFL — and now, the attorneys general in California and New York are investigating the NFL, in part for the way the league handled the Commanders toxic workplace allegations. Sources said some things are clear: Snyder is selling, Harris is in line to add to his sports empire that already includes co-owners of the Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Devils, and a new era isn’t far off for the once-storied franchise near the nation’s capital.

https://theathletic.com/4503339/2023/05/10/josh-harris-commanders-sale-nfl?source=user-shared-article With the NFL finance committee meeting today and owners gathering May 22-23, the long-hoped-for sale of the Washington Commanders to a group led by Josh Harris for $6.05 billion could get a vote, even if only conditionally. Elements of the deal would break the mold for an NFL franchise sale, underscoring how much the league appears willing to bend its guidelines to move on from the Daniel Snyder era. There is the possibility of an unprecedented conditional approval, allowing more debt than is standard and the prospective soon-to-be ex-owner extending a loan to the Harris group to get the deal over the finish line. While the roughly 17 limited partners in the deal do not exceed the league cap of 25, they will require extensive vetting, with investors from outside the country making the process more challenging. The proposed sale is on the agenda for the finance committee meeting. Buyers of teams can borrow up to $1.1 billion secured against the franchise, which Harris proposes. He also plans to add more debt secured against his other sports teams, which include the Philadelphia 76ers, New Jersey Devils and part of Crystal Palace FC of the English Premier League. That raises questions about what would happen if he defaulted on that debt. When Snyder bought the team and Jack Kent Cooke Stadium in 1999, his limited partners at the time borrowed against their personal businesses to help finance the deal. The league was OK with that because if those loans ever went into default, it would not affect the controlling partner. But in this case, it is the controlling partner who would be borrowing against his other businesses. Recent NFL sales have involved buyers who did not need help buying the team. Last year, members of the Walton family bought the Denver Broncos for $4.65 billion, and before that, fund billionaire David Tepper bought the Carolina Panthers for $2.275 billion in 2019. But as the prices have skyrocketed, worries emerged that at some point buyers would struggle to acquire NFL teams while working around the debt rules. That is what appears to be happening. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos hired an investment bank to consider a bid, but Snyder initially shut him out over his ownership of “The Washington Post,” which published stories about the club’s toxic work culture that in part led to the sales process. Bezos easily could have afforded the team on his own, and NFL owners may want to know why that avenue was blocked. However, after more than two decades of Snyder’s ownership, they may be willing to overlook issues in the Harris proposal, evidenced by the league considering conditional approval before the deal is even signed by Snyder. Technically, other bidders, including Steve Apostolopoulos, still could make a run as Snyder has yet to sign an agreement. Typically, a seller and buyer sign an agreement and then submit it to the league for approval. In this case, Harris has unilaterally submitted the bid, and the league is considering presenting it to owners for a vote that would be conditional on Snyder ultimately signing it. “I still believe it will get approval,” a person close to Harris said. “It’s dragging through the NFL because they’ve never had to evaluate this type of bid. The NFL’s choice is getting Dan out (versus) working through Josh’s complexity. I think they’ll find a way, but no guarantees.” Snyder’s loan appears to be the $200 million reported difference between how much the Harris group would pay at closing — $5.8 billion — and the final price. Asked why Snyder would seller finance, the person close to Harris said, “Dan wants to sell.” The league is also faced with Snyder’s request for indemnification from any potential lawsuits or fines that occur after a sale. The league has promised to release a report from the more than year-long investigation into claims Snyder made unwanted advances on a female employee and hid money from the 31 other teams that should have been shared. Mary Jo White is leading that probe. The Harris group has already agreed to contract language to offer some indemnification, according to the person close to Harris. It’s unclear if that provision will pass muster with the league. Snyder’s reign over the Commanders since acquiring the team in 1999 has been woeful on the field and disastrous off it. In 2020, “The Washington Post” published an expose of rampant sexual harassment at the team, leading to an NFL investigation that found a toxic work culture and led to a $10 million club fine in 2021. Snyder at the time was also battling his three top partners in ugly back-and-forth court battles over his stewardship of the team and their efforts to sell. Through league arbitration, the trio ultimately agreed to sell their combined 40 percent stake for $875 million, which today looks like a steal for Snyder. The federal court in the Eastern District of Virginia is also probing bank fraud at the team, while the attorney general of Washington, D.C., is suing the team — and the NFL — for allegedly obscuring sexual harassment at the club.

https://theathletic.com/4494816/2023/05/09/commanders-sale-jason-wright-daniel-snyder/ Wright does, however, have his critics — both within and outside of the organization. As is the case with most restoration projects, things have not gone without a hitch. The Athletic spoke to 15 people around the league with ties to Wright or with current or recent ties to the team for this story, some of whom were granted anonymity to share their candid thoughts without fear of retaliation. Some longtime supporters say significant employee turnover has robbed the Commanders of much-needed institutional knowledge, leading to setbacks and gaffes under Wright that have included: • The lukewarm fan response to the new Commanders nickname. • An inability to properly honor the late Sean Taylor, the Washington safety who was shot to death in 2007 during a robbery at his Florida home. Instead, each attempt has resulted in embarrassment. • A bounced $14,822 50/50 raffle check. (The team blamed a banking error and later wired the money to the winning participant.) And there have been other issues. Scott Davidson is a former Commanders corporate partner who stepped down last season from the team’s Leadership Council after he said the working relationship with the charitable foundation staff became untenable. He said after the team’s annual Welcome Home Luncheon in 2022, the Commanders failed to deliver to corporate sponsors a number of items promised as part of purchased prize packages and eventually refunded the sponsors the cost of those items instead. Davidson, whose company has a corporate suite at FedExField, also cited a lack of security to these exclusive areas. He said fans without suite tickets had routinely been able to gain access. Black Rifle Coffee is a vendor for FedExField. Company liaison Mike Garcia said in 2022, two days before the Week 1 game, three coffee machines were stolen from a stadium storage room. Garcia said he was forced to scramble and purchase replacements on his own at Target after a Commanders representative said the team couldn’t help him. “These people Jason Wright has hired have zero experience in the NFL,” Davidson said. “I know you have to start somewhere, but you’re hiring high-level people and they don’t have the knowledge and we can see how poorly things have gone. … There’s no attention to detail, and how will people get better if there are no consequences or accountability?” Wright declined to address the particulars of these incidents, but said that accountability does run strong within the organization. “Externally, I am always going to praise and cover for my people,” he said. “Internally, there’s going to be high accountability and intense follow-up. That’s the balance. We keep our family stuff inside the family.” Wright concedes that he and his employees have fallen short at times. Some of that is due to high staffing turnover, he said, and some of it is due to growing pains and years of underperformance. “We didn’t take on a steady NFL franchise. This is a turnaround,” he said, before later adding: “We’ve failed on and off the field the last couple of years — but when you do fail, you as a leader step up and take the arrows that are coming for your people so that they can continue to work. You affirm them. Challenge them to do better, but you affirm them, remind them of their strengths and that allows them to bounce back more creatively, greater attention to detail or whatever it is that has needed to change.” Those who work closely with Wright say he has no problem admitting when he or his team makes mistakes. He also welcomes input on solutions for problem areas. Staff members say such an approach builds stronger morale. “A great quality that I can say about Jason is, he takes all the criticisms whether they’re valid or not, whether they should be directed to him or not, but he’s always passing the praise,” said Trista Langdon, who joined the Commanders in December 2021 as senior vice president of operations and guest experience. Former Washington Super Bowl MVP Doug Williams, who now serves as a senior adviser to Wright, said: “The people that he has surrounded himself with really believe in Jason. They all do an excellent job of communicating from the area that he has them in and about the people they have under them.” Wright hears criticisms but shrugs them off, aware he will never please everyone. He admits that some of his hires ended up being poor fits and that some ideas and decisions haven’t panned out. But he remains confident in his mission and wants to guide the Commanders well beyond the team sale and back to the organization’s glory days. While pursuing those goals, Wright draws inspiration from another source: Sir Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If,” with which Wright fell in love in 2001, after hearing it at an informational session for Northwestern’s Alpha Phi Alpha chapter. Wright can recite the entire 32-line poem. “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you; If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,” Wright began, before concluding with Kipling’s promised payoff: “If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with Kings — nor lose the common touch; If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you; If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute with 60 seconds’ worth of distance run, yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, And — which is more — you’ll be a Man, my son!”

MAY 05, 2023 • 02:42 PM Share URL copied to clipboard Josh Harris already cleared the largest hurdle in his takeover of the Washington Commanders: He pulled together a $6.05 billion bid with the help of a dozen-plus limited partners. The next step — especially for someone who already co-owns the Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Devils — is actually running the team when the purchase is approved in the coming weeks. “Out of all the leagues, the NFL is easier to step into because it’s literally impossible to f–k it badly enough to lose money,” a former sports executive told Front Office Sports. “But there are plenty of reasons why somebody may not succeed as owner.” A look at the early reign of current Commanders owner Dan Snyder is a roadmap of what not to do as a new NFL owner. Almost immediately after his $800 million purchase was approved in 1999, Snyder forced out respected longtime GM Charley Casserly. Over the next 18 months, he fired head coach Norv Turner, installed Jeff George as QB, tossed millions at an aging Deion Sanders, and moved training camp to the team’s Northern Virginia headquarters — where he charged fans both a parking and entry fee. Owners were resistant to cold-weather Washington hosting the 2006 Super Bowl in an open-air stadium, but sources told FOS the bigger factor was Snyder’s forceful approach. In 2001, Snyder secured approval from Prince George’s County to ban pedestrians from accessing FedEx Field from outside parking lots that he didn’t own, which led to a class-action lawsuit and repeal in 2004. Sources close to Harris said he won’t institute significant changes upon the bid’s approval, which could come as early as later this month. GM Martin Mayhew, president Jason Wright, and head coach Ron Rivera aren’t likely to be replaced with training camp starting in late July and the roster is all but set. “They’re going to want to feel things out and get an assessment of things,” one source said. Rule of Three Harris partnered with fellow private equity billionaire David Blitzer to purchase the 76ers in 2011 for $280 million and Devils in 2013 for $320 million. The days, weeks, and months after each acquisition had a lot in common. With the 76ers, Harris and Blitzer retained team president Rod Thorn (and made him GM) and head coach Doug Collins for multiple seasons. Longtime 76ers exec Tony DiLeo took over the role of GM ahead of the 2012-13 season. After that season, Harris oversaw a major transition for the 76ers, perhaps influenced by his affinity for analytics developed when he built a fortune in private equity. Harris installed Sam Hinkie as president. As the Houston Rockets’ executive VP of basketball operations, HInkie was one of the NBA’s earliest analytics innovators — but what followed wasn’t pretty. As the possible originator of Philly’s infamous “Trust the Process” mantra, Hinkie presided over a three-season run where the 76res won a total of 47 games that generated top draft picks, including Joel Embiid, this season’s MVP. Now Hinkie’s gone, and the 76ers have made the playoffs six seasons in a row. Harris and Blitzer used the same approach with the Devils. Team President Lou Lamoriello was left in charge for two years after the changeover — at which point the changes and losing seasons piled up. The Devils’ current run is only the team’s second in Harris’ decade as owner, but the excitement hasn’t been this high since the team’s Stanley Cup Final run fell short in 2012. “We’re seeing the fruits of the labor right now with these two playoff runs,” a league executive said. The Commanders have made the playoffs six times in Snyder’s 24 seasons as owner. Before the details of the toxic workplace under Snyder became public and the investigations ramped up, it was the losing — and higher prices — that drew the fans’ ire. Style Points Snyder hasn’t done an on-camera interview since 2014, when he was still clinging to that “R” name the team once had. His full-time residence has been in London for a while, and he was in the Mediterranean near his yacht during a Congressional hearing last June. Harris isn’t quite the recluse Snyder has been, but he also isn’t Jerry Jones, so it’s unlikely he’ll follow the front-and-center approach Steve Ballmer took in 2014 when he purchased the Los Angeles Clippers after the NBA exiled Donald Sterling. “I do think that is one thing that helped,” a former NBA executive said. “You had a guy who was out there and was basically saying, ‘You can be a Clipper fan now. That guy is gone.’ That was important. If [the new Commanders ownership] doesn’t have that, it’s going to be hard to constantly remind people, ‘This is a new day.’” And since we’re talking about a team near the nation’s capital, that means more than just interviews with sports reporters. The fact that Harris’ group will have more than a dozen limited partners, there will be options for outreach beyond Harris. Industrial firm co-founder Mitchell Rales, former NBA great Magic Johnson, security firm exec Mark Ein, Colombian-American beer heir Alejandro Santo Domingo and rental property firm founder Mitchell Morgan are the limited partners FOS has been able to confirm so far. “Since this is D.C., you’re really going to need to do a round of media, both sports and political media,” a banker told FOS. “Then you’re going to have to do the rounds with politicians, especially in the District, Maryland, and Virginia.” Harris is no doubt hoping one or more those three jurisdictions will be open to subsidizing a new stadium. But until it’s built, the Commanders — who will have the same name, players, and coaching staff — will have to build enthusiasm at their current home in Landover, Maryland. Harris’ best attribute is that he’s not Dan Snyder. That will help on the business side, especially. “Everything should dramatically improve,” the banker said. “They’re busy trying to close the deal, so I don’t think they’ve focused at all yet on how taxing this is going to be for them as owners. You are going to try to right all the wrongs as you prepare for a new stadium. That’s a lot to have on the table.”

Also in the group is Mitchell Morgan, CEO of Morgan Properties, which says it is the largest apartment owner in the states of Maryland, Pennsylvania and New York.

May 10th is the next big date. That's when reps for the Harris group will be meeting with owners from the finance group to lay out their bid and plan in detail according to Breer and AJ Perez.

It is said that a draft should not be graded until at least 3 years have passed. That means it's time to make your final grades on the 2020 draft class. They were as follows: 1.2- Chase Young 3.2- Antonio Gibson 4.2- Saahdiq Charles 4.36- Antonio Gandy-Golden 5.11- Keith Ismael 5.17- Khaleke Hudson 7.2- Kamren Curl 7.15- James Smith-Williams UDFA Thaddeus Moss Steven Montez

Dammit you guys have me so hyped up for certain players at the Commanders next pick. I am gonna be hella bummed when they don't take any of them!!!