The Kevin Sheehan Show - Josh Harris To Buy Commanders

Episode Date: April 13, 2023

Kevin and Thom today with reaction to the Sportico report that Josh Harris has an agreement with Dan Snyder to buy the Commanders for $6 billion. The guys were reacting in real-time to the information that was coming in. There was some football discussion on the show today regarding Hendon Hooker to Washington in the NFL Draft and Kevin brought on Eben Novy-Williams from Sportico at the end to follow up on his story.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You don't want it. You don't need it. But you're going to get it anyway. The Kevin Cheehan Show. Here's Kevin. Tommy is here. I am here. Tommy, can we start the show by finally dropping the surgeon general's warning that you many years ago put into place?

Be careful. Routing for this team could cause harm to your health. Can we drop that finally? You can peel that sticker off and throw it away. You can smoke again. Woo! Yes. Yes.

There is no more Skipper Dan, the sailing man. It's, oh, it's, well, again, it's over today. I mean, again, there's always the qualifier. I don't want to rain on the parade here. I mean, because this is a guy who, remember, it left sour milk in the learners sweet because of a business. this deal he wasn't crazy about, though anything's possible. But it's reported by Sportico that they have a sale agreement in principle.

Is that correct? Yeah. So we're doing this podcast early afternoon about 1.45 p.m. All right. We have been following the news. I got it right before I went off the air on radio. that Sportico, a pretty credible outfit, that Sportico was reporting that the sale was done. I'll read you their tweet. Dan Snyder has reached an agreement in principle to sell the commanders for $6 billion to a group led by Philadelphia 76ers co-owner Josh Harris.

We've had Ian Rappaport since then from the NFL network, of course. report that from the NFL right now, Josh Harris's group is nearing a purchase of the commanders for just under $6 billion sources say, nothing is done, final agreed to or submitted to the league, but Harris appears to be the choice, but a small step closer. So it would appear as if, as of now, Sportico is the one that has said that they have reached an agreement. Now, You know, I've been hearing things for several weeks. You've been hearing things for several weeks. Everybody's been hearing several things for several weeks in the media,

in this sports media in this town. And I've been saying, Josh Harris, something less than $6 billion, sooner rather than later. And it got later, I understand. And I mentioned on the show yesterday that I am, you know, hearing now much sooner than later. And then we got the Bezos news about that he was out. I'm not so sure how far he was in, but Teddy Schiphor, who we had on the podcast last week from Puck News, who he covers Silicon Valley billionaires, had reported a week ago, or just less than a week ago, that Bezos was lurking.

He even predicted on this podcast that Bezos would be the guy that would buy the team. And then he reported yesterday, and a lot of people jumped on it, including the Washington Post, that Bezos apparently had decided not to bid on the team. So look, the net of it is that if the reporting on Bezos was accurate, it was only Josh Harris left. I don't think that anybody really other than Josh Harris ever submitted a bid that Snyder would have accepted. Tillman Fertita, the owner of the Rockets said on CNBC yesterday that he did make an offer for $5.6 billion. And we've read about Apostolopoulopoulos that he doesn't have the financing in place. So there are a lot of people, and I've been in this group, that have expected Josh Harris to win the bidding.

Let me just tell you one thing that I did learn since the announcement came out from Sportico is that, now, Rappaport's saying just under $6 billion. Sportico is saying $6 billion. What I learned is that, and it's kind of what I guessed is it would be presented as $6 billion. Snyder wants six next to the B for this sale. But the price that Harris is paying is $5.85 billion. But there is a potential earnout for Snyder of $150 million that would get it to $6 billion. I don't know what that earn out is in terms of what's involved in that. I don't.

I don't know if it has anything to do with further due diligence. that if it uncovers things that they're not going to be responsible for as new owners, because I think we did read somebody reported that Snyder did not get the indemnification that he was looking for. But, you know, to me, this is minutia, 5.8, 5 billion with $150 million earn out or not. The story here is that Dan appears to be gone. if he wants to say he got $12 billion, I don't think fans are going to give a rat's ass.

Yes. You know? Yeah, agreed. So. This is the day. This is the first of probably many days in the coming weeks of feeling celebratory. Yeah. But you know, you and I talked about this earlier in the week, I'm pretty sure,

and I know I talked about this with others, that the months and months of, you know, since the Bank of America news in November, that the news of this was going to be a little bit anticlimactic. And I do feel like that because we've been worn down by the reporting in the process. And Dan's been kind of wearing people down with, you know, fennig, you know, haggling over whatever he's been haggling over

and trying to get Bezos into up. the price or to actually give him the price that he wanted. But yeah, look, we knew all along, I think he was selling the team. I guess there was always a chance something could happen. But it really seems like today, April 13th, 2023 is a day that will be remembered for the day that 24 years of Snyder ended. You know, 24 years of literally sucking the life day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, sucking the life out of one of the most incredible, passionate fan bases in sports. We've talked about this so many times.

Like if either one of us had said to each other in 1999, you know, in 24 years, the skins are going to have the lowest attendance in the league and most of the people that go to the games are going to be rooting for the opponent. They're going to have one third of the audience watching the games. No one's going to really care as much like they do. We both want each other drug checked. Like it's still his greatest accomplishment

is chasing away this fan base. It couldn't happen. A quarter of a century ago, a century ago, it was impossible for it to happen, but he did it. And like you've said so many times, Tommy, the damage inflicted. And just, and now, you know, now we can start to hopefully recover and revive ourselves. You know? And repair.

Recovery, revive, and repair. There you go, the three arms. Yeah. You know, I mean, you have two groups of people. You have the people who lived through the good times, the over-the-hill gang, the three Super Bowl championships under Joe Gibbs. Me. They know, yeah, they know what was lost,

and that pain goes down to the bone. Because you know how good it could be. Okay? And then you've got the group that came after, and I have only known this, despair and dysfunction, and have had to listen to the stories of the glory days. They have this hollow emptiness that can be, that can't be filled, no, how many times the team trotted out those Super Bowl trophies. You know, that was a, that was a, what, the Super Bowl trophies was just a reminder of what they missed.

Yeah. So you've got these two groups that are jumping for joy for very different reasons. The pain was different, just as bad probably for boats, but the pain was different. Yeah, I mean, as you said, for people like me who lived through all of those years, it just, it's hard to explain what a big part of our lives it was. and I've said this before, I'm sure, you know, it was an outsized and inappropriate part of our lives. But, you know, that's what happens. You have passions in life, and some of them are, you know, passions that are diversions that, you know,

and rooting for sports is kind of a diversion. But it was, I mean, from the age of, you know, five years old, I mean, from birth for me, but I went to my first game at five years old. It was part of my overall, you know, anybody that knew me and new people like me knew that the Redskins were a big part of our lives. It was a big part of our conversations. And there was an incredible, it's going to sound weird,

but there's like this incredible confidence that comes with being a part even as a fan of a winner. It does something, and by the way, the kind of winner Washington was, too, which, you know, I pointed out over the years that not only did they win, they won with brains, they won with class. You know, we were always, we rooted for the team. Our team was the smartest team in the NFL, the classiest team in the NFL.

You know, everything about it was really, really. legal. And it was, and there's been this slow kind of burn to near death. You know what? You know what he did? Dan Snyder? And there's no more Skipper Dan, the sailing man anymore. You won't write about Skipper Dan anymore? No, no more Skipper Dan. Because the whole point of that was to deflate, this inflated person who was so enamored with himself, He made people call Mr. Snyder. Right. Okay.

Now he's just the disgraced, soon-to-be-former owner, Dan Snyder. He doesn't need a nickname anymore. He's going to become invisible soon, you know. He'll be on an island spending his billion dollars. Check in his phone to see on Sundays to see if the team that he had to sell how they're doing. you know, but basically he held like what had become and I know because I lived through it

I was here, I've been here since 83 in town and I've been a football fan much longer it was a family tradition to root for this team and not just a family tradition in a city that had so many different interests it was a unifying force

and he held that hostage that's what he did He held that happiness hostage. Yeah, he did. It was such, this incredible unifier for this city that's so fragmented in so many ways. Like, you know, there's so many cities that are so much more parochial than this city, you know. And this city had one thing that really unified it. And it was this team.

And, you know, it was a family affair. It was a community affair. it brought every, you know, people have said this over the years, obviously, but it brought everybody from every side of town, every demographic. And on Sunday afternoons, everybody was together for the same reason. And he ruined it. He was the, as the owner of the team, look, there are lots of people he brought in that helped, but he brought him in.

He ruined it. and it was impossible for it to be ruined. That's why I've said for years now, and somebody actually said, I forget who it was, said, you know, used my line but claimed it for themselves, but whatever. But for years, Tommy, I've said, Harvard Business School, Wharton, all of them should do case studies on this franchise.

How to chase a passionate customer base away in 20 years, or less, because it was near impossible what he did, and there's so many lessons from it. So many lessons from it. I don't know what the number one lesson would be for him, but I think narcissism is not changeable, maybe, but it was the root of all of it. You know, there was... Yeah. There was...

He talked about, like, the people, there were other people involved, people he brought in, people who would tell Dan Snyder what he didn't want to hear weren't there very long no that's not who he wanted around him you know and so they've got they basically had a building full weasel you know led by the head weasel

yeah like we've said for so many years the worst combination in a person or in a business is being arrogant and and being limited intellectually. And this was this organization from the time he took it over. They did so many dumb things, but they were so full of themselves that they could never admit that it was them who was dumb because it was somebody else's fault. It was always somebody else's fault. Even Bruce, his good buddy Bruce, as soon as he was out the door and the whole congressional investigation started after the post stories, it was all Bruce's fault. It's just unbelievable.

All Bruce's fault. Yeah. All Bruce's fault. It was always somebody else's fault. It was all Zorn's fault. It was all Marty's fault. It was all Vennie's fault, all Vennie's fault, all Mike's fault. All Bruce's fault. It was never Gibbs's fault, though, wasn't. No, it wasn't. It wasn't Gibbs's fault. By the way, you know, I did this call segment this morning on the show. I said, because I had said yesterday, I think I may have said it on the podcast too, but I said, you know, I don't know, a parade to me seems a bit distasteful. And our good friend Paulie from the 757 sent me a note and just said, distasteful. Kick in a man while he's down, he's taking $6 billion. We're going to party like it's 1999.

So I did this segment, I said, do you want to parade for real? Like, do you really want to go to that extreme? Because I don't really think that that's what you do. I mean... Well, I've got the opportunity for you to do it. Actually, November, April 29th, the draft party at National Harbor. There's a draft party. That's what commander fans should organize a parade at National Harbor.

I know, but you know what I'm talking about. about. We've been talking about there will be... No, no, no, no, no. You can't take the high road when you're dealing with this guy. You better drive on the same low road he's on. Yeah, I knew you'd say that. I knew that would be your answer. Yeah, I mean, there is nobody that takes, you know, more pleasure in the misery of others than you. I...

But I'm all for people who deserve it. Yeah. Well, he's... He deserves it. Only for people who deserve it. He deserves a lot of it. The guy from Fox Business News, Charles Gasparino, who has admitted that he's friends with the Snyder during all of his reporting. He tweeted out moments ago, this is what Dan Snyder is saying to his hater today.

I bought the commanders for $800 million and just sold it for $6 billion. Suck on that. I just quote tweeted it, win-win, because it's a win for both of us. You know, it's a win for him financially. But it is a bigger win for us. He doesn't want to sell the team. Exactly. You know, that's that, so it's a win, but it's not a win for him.

Because it was up to him, left to his own devices, he wouldn't be selling the team. $800 million, $6 billion in 24 years. Not bad. I get that. Not a bad return on investment. Like us, poor people sell. about rich people, but are they happy, Kevin? Well, money doesn't buy happiness, Tommy.

I wouldn't know and you wouldn't know. Right. But there's certainly a lot of, you know, look, money doesn't make you smart and money doesn't necessarily make you happy. And he's not happy that he's been forced into this situation. And I would say over the years he's done enough dumb things to say that he isn't brilliant. I'm not saying he's not innately intelligent because I bet he is, but he's done a lot of dumb things for somebody who's innately intelligent.

That's for sure. Yes, yes, yes, he has. Now, what's interesting is the team already has an event schedule for tonight. I'm going to call it FedEx Field. I'm getting off Goatstown Field. Okay? No, don't get off it quite yet. Because he, what?

I'm giving up because I'm giving these guys a clean slate to turn it around. Right. You know, I mean, I don't expect them to turn around quickly, but, I mean, Ghost Townfield spoke to the ownership of the team as much as the stadium. Okay. Tonight, Eric the enemy is holding, I guess, a chat at the stadium with commanders fans. Is he really? You know, it's like, yes, which is actually, this is the kind of thing they should be doing.

and they should have been doing all along. This is smart, okay? At the last minute, they get smart. He's having a beat with commanders fans tonight to talk about his offense, his offensive philosophy, things like that. So I'll be curious how that unfolds, given the news of today. You know, how fans, if they go through with it, how fans will react to that event, given the news we have today.

And then, like I said, there's the April 29th draft party, which I think will be more of a celebration of the sale of the team than anything else. But, yeah, they're doing an event tonight, which I think is smart. Putting Eric B. Enemy out there as a face of the team, I think it's a smart idea. So let me give somebody credit walking out the door for that one. Yeah, I mean, look, when you do things the right way and you're, winning, you don't necessarily need these things, but when you're trying to acquire new customers and reacquire old customers, these things are smart to do. Yes, they are.

So, you know, we're sitting here doing this podcast all the while, you know, trying to follow all of the news that's breaking. Michael Phillips has just reported there is an agreement in principle. It's happening with the Richmond Times Dispatch. I just read one of the Gasparino, Charles Gasparino tweets. Here's another one from the Fox Business News Network correspondent. And again, he is close to the Snyders. He's made no bones that basically he's friendly with Dan and Tanya Snyder.

So the implication, I think, or the takeaway is that a lot of his information has been coming from Snyder. He tweeted out, Dan Snyder will today submit to the NFL a fully financed agreed upon $6.050 billion bid for the commanders by Josh Harris. Deal is not signed and will needily review. Others still interested. Snyder is not seeking any indemnification from the NFL. Jeff Bezos never bid. Story still developing.

The, you know, I mean, Snyder really, I mean, he is hell bent on this thing being presented as $6 billion or, in this case, 6.050, 6.050. I mean, I think what's been happening here, Tommy, for the last two to three weeks is they've been haggling over like $150 million. That's a lot of money, I understand. but it's a tiny percentage of the overall sale price. But again, to your point, and I agree with this, that's not the story today. Who cares what it is sold for? And yeah, here's another thing from Gasparino. Man, he is a Snyder fan.

My brother is a lifelong Redskins slash commanders fan, and even he's impressed that Snyder's investment in this team beat the return on the S&P by a lot. Oh my God. He's got a fan. There he is. Him and Ivan are the two. It's, I think we're here.

I think the day has come. And now, you know. It has. The day that we probably, you know, a couple years ago, given his age and his personality, we've never thought this was coming. No. New York Times now, Dan Snyder agrees to sell for $6 billion to the Harris Group. New York Times now reporting it.

I mean, he's a relatively young man, you know, and, you know, it's difficult and obstinate, and we just figured, well, he ain't going anywhere. You're just going to have to settle for the occasional, you know, winning successful season and live with that. that the NFL has built into it. But it just shows you that circumstance, you know, the unpredictability of the future. And let's give credit. Just started with the Washington Post.

It started with the Post and their stories about the women and the employees who felt they were abused by a toxic workplace and then sexual harassment allegations. which immediately drove away, you know, several employees right from the start were forced out. But that's where this all began. It did, and I can appreciate, you know, that you're giving them credit. But it also, he was going to survive that. What really got him was, as we've discussed before, kind of this boomerang that he threw out there,

which was, you know, if you believe this to be true, leaking the Bruce Allen John Gruden emails to the Wall Street Journal and then the New York Times wrote about it and that was the root cause of what came afterwards which

were you know the House Oversight and Reform Roundtable and their investigation and you know led to obviously the the

the the the the the the the the the the the testimony, excuse me, I'm sorry, I'm joking on this. You're a little bit too excited. The testimony of, you know, people like Jason Friedman and Tiffany Johnston, which led to another big-time, you know, investigation. And that's why we're here.

I'm not saying that the post story. Yes, it is. But he had started to kind of, yeah, he had recovered a little bit from that. Yes, he had. Yes, he had. Basically, he, but that's the perfect example. of who he is, how this got revived, how the embers, they were down to embers maybe, and they got blown up into full flame again by his own hand.

Right. By leaking those emails, which made it in terms of the Oversight Committee an NFL issue, you know, but it never really was an NFL issue. It was a Washington commander's Dan Snyder issue. Right. I mean, without that which got everybody else going once again on all of these allegations. And, you know, anyway, yeah, we've been through this a lot. He sunk himself in many ways.

But eventually, like you said, one of your favorite, you know, sayings about Dan Snyder, The passage of time really never was going to help this franchise. So eventually something else would have happened. You know, whether Tiffany Johnson and Jason Friedman didn't come forward and Mary Jo White didn't start her investigation, something else would have eventually happened. The aura of self-destruction. Which hopefully now will be lifted.

What are you going to do? What are you going to do with your life now? Are you going to retire? No. No, look at it. I could write happy. I covered a baseball team that won a World Series. Okay?

I can write happy. Okay. I mean, granted, it will be. And like I said, I'm putting away all the tools, all the nicknames, all the fun stuff, you know, because it's a new day. You know? Are you ready for this? I'm capable of that. We got more news here.

We got more news. Adam Schaefter. Are you ready for this? one? Are you seeing this? Canadian billionaire Steve Apostolopoulos and his family are still in the mix for the commanders with one source telling ESPN that it's a head-to-head race. It's anyone's game. No deal has been signed sources tell ESPN and any deal has to be submitted and approved by league owners. Well, we understand that part of it. We know that. Yeah. We understand that the closing didn't happen today.

Right. But remember... I mean, everyone is reporting agreement and principle. Yeah, but... Now, the one problem is, is Dan Snyder doesn't have many principles. Right, but Adam Schaefter had just dropped

something else into the conversation that it's not Josh Harris, definitely. Now, look, he's the one that said a few weeks ago that Harris and Apostolopold has had the fully funded $6 billion bids in. And now he's saying they're still in the mix, one source saying it's head to head.

So, yeah, okay. That's the risk of doing a podcast without having all of the information in. But this is, you know, this is our podcast today. We're not going to go back and start over, are we? No. No. Because I don't know. I'm Canadian.

for some Canadian. We like our neighbors to the north. Come on. No, I do. I love Canadians, actually. I actually do, too. They frequent the West Coast of Florida a lot. You've noticed that, right?

The East Coast of Florida is definitely New York, Boston, D.C. It's the Northeast. The West Coast of Florida are all the Midwesterners and the Canadians. Oh, there was a Canadian that hung out at Kenny D.'s. was there every karaoke night. He was the life of the party, man. Digging your stuff. I used to love to hear his Canadian accent, too.

He was a funny guy. Yeah, they basically take over that section of Florida. Yeah, they do. All right. Josh Harris, we'll put the Steve Apostolopoulopoulos-Shefter thing on hold for right now. Let's talk about Josh Harris when we come back. and what this group will be like his owners. We had Howard Gutman on the show a while back,

and he spelled it out. We'll talk a little bit more about it when we come back right after these words from a few of our sponsors. All right, Tommy, tell us about Shelley's. Can we go down there and celebrate the big news? Cigars? Where else are you going to go?

Great wine. In D.C.? Yes. Where else are you going to go in D.C. to light up a cigar? and celebrate. There is no place else, okay? You have a drink and celebrate with a smoke. That Dan Snyder is on the way out. Shelly's back room, that's the place to do it, you know? That's 1331, F Street, Northwest. And actually on a beautiful, warm day like this, I wish I was outside right now, puffing on a cigar. They have a great outdoor seating area on F Street at Shelly's as well.

But they have a great selection of cigars to pick from, great selection of whiskeys like Kevin was saying. The wine, Kevin being a wine connoisseur. No, I'm not. He knows all about that. I'm not. You know, and they have an excellent menu. If there's any celebration party to be held for Dan Snyder selling the Washington commanders, Shelley's back room is the place to go.

and actually they can accommodate private parties up to 250 people. Ooh, that'd be a hell of a celebration. That'd be a hell of a celebration. Yes. Shelly's Backroom, 1331 F Street, Northwest. You can find them on shelley's backroom.com. They have great pine-not noir. All right.

So let's continue with this podcast, assuming that the news first reported by Sportico that there is an agreement in place for Josh Harris to buy the Washington commanders for, just call it $6 billion, is what happens here. Also reported by the New York Times. New York Times and others as well. Adam Schaefter just coming in with the Apostolopoulos a bid,

apparently they feel they're still in this and it's anybody's game here. But whatever. We're headed towards, you know, new ownership here in Washington, which will be great. And I just wanted to remind everybody that, you know, an agreement in principle, there's still, you know, weeks to go. You know, the league has to approve the new owners with a three-quarters vote by all of the other owners in the league. And there's lots of legal documents and more due diligence and lots of stuff to happen

before there will be a closing date in which they'll sign the final documents. They'll sign the team over to the Harris group, and Harris and company will wire 5.85 billion or 6.05 billion or whatever it is to Dan Snyder's account. And then, by the way, Dan's, Dan owes some money to the league. Hopefully they are senior debt, and they are, you know, they get paid directly by Harris before it goes to Snyder, because I'll tell you what, I'd hate to be a receivable for Dan Snyder, any company owned by Dan Snyder. Josh Harris, I think many of you know by now, grew up in Chevy Chase, went to the field

school, which is a high school over, you know, off of Fox Hall Road. And then went to Wharton, went to Harvard, where he got his MBA, and he co-founded Apollo Global Management with two gentlemen Leon Black and Mark Rowan. which was a private equity group, and they made a lot of money in running that private equity group. As of April 2023, his net worth is estimated by Forbes to be around $6 billion. Bloomberg estimates it to be about $7.6 billion. He led investment groups as the lead investor, just like he is in the purchase of Washington, football team. He was the lead investor in the purchasing of the Philadelphia 76ers and the New

Jersey Devils in terms of American sports. He's also a general partner in Crystal Palace FC of the Premier League. And he's currently, and he'll have to obviously sell his shares of this, but he's currently a small stakeholder in the Pittsburgh Steelers. So the NFL knows Josh Harris. They have vetted Josh Harris. They vetted him for the Denver sale. They vetted him for his small stake in the Steelers. By the way, it's interesting that being a small stakeholder in the Steelers now will produce, I think, two out of the last three NFL new owners. David Tepper was a small stakeholder in the Steelers. I don't know if the Walton Penner group, if anybody there was a small stakeholder in the Steelers, but you know, you cut your teeth

at a really good organization, and they get to know you a little bit, and that opens up the door for buying, you know, a team like Washington. The 76ers and the Devils both had excellent years this year. He's been called more of a hands-off owner, you know, hiring people and letting them do the job. Obviously, they went through the process in Philadelphia with him as the owner. and we've heard, you know, a lot about Josh Harris from Howard Gutman, our good friend, who spoke, you know, in depth about his relationship with Mitchell Rails, the co-founder of Danaher group with his brother, Stephen Rails. And Mitchell Rails is, we believe to be not only a co-investor, but the second biggest investor. and he will eventually become the second biggest shareholder in the team.

And Howard said Mitchell Rails would not get into business with Josh Harris for a team like this. And his existence in the deal speaks volumes of Josh Harris. Look, we don't know enough. We don't know how he will be as an NFL owner. We don't know whether or not he'll hire the right people. I think the one thing that we know, and we've said this all along, is there's no chance that it could ever be worse than it's been for the last quarter century. But the fact that he's own sports teams, he'll be vetted by the NFL, he's known by the NFL, you know, he'll have Magic Johnson in the bid, Mitchell Rails in the bid. Here's what we know.

We know a lot, a lot more about Josh Harris than we did about Dan Snyder in 1990. So true. So that should make everyone feel a lot better. I mean, you know, Snyder was such an unknown, you know, in 1999. He was, in the original bid, he was not even the lead guy. He was part of the Milstein bid. Right.

You know, we heard of the Milstein's. Everyone knew about them. I mean, we didn't know about this kid from, from D.C. or Bethesst or. Rockville, where's he from? Yeah, grew up in Bethesda Rockville, went to Woodward High School. Yeah. So we know a lot more about Josh Harris.

There's a lot more to measure what we expect of him. Here's what we know, too. We know that putting together this kind of bid for the commanders, you know, for $5.85 to $6 billion wasn't easy. Josh Rails couldn't write the check on his own. He couldn't write the check. Josh Harris, excuse me, couldn't write the check on his own. He couldn't write the check just with Mitchell Rails. They probably could have combined to write the whole thing.

But there are going to be other significant limited partners. I shared with everybody last week that I learned that Magic Johnson wasn't just a face of this group. He is going to be a significant investor to the tune of, you know, somewhere in the neighborhood of, you know, three times or more what he spent for the Dodgers, which was 50 million. So Magic's going to be in for 150 to 200 million. I know that's not, you know, that's still a small fraction, but Magic may end up being the third largest shareholder in the group.

But we know that they, you know, had to put together a lot of investors, limited partners to get into position that they had a full. fully funded bid to make. And because of that, you know, you start thinking about the stadium. And can they actually just build a stadium without any help? And I think maybe the answer is no. And so what does that mean for D.C.? And then to add to that conversation, Tommy has talked about that neighborhood's a different

neighborhood and there will be a fight to keep a stadium out and to get the zoning that you need and it won't be as easy as just getting rid of Dan to get the D.C. stadium. You know, will they take a deal in Loudoun County because Virginia will want to do business with new owners and will contribute significantly to the new stadium? Or will they do it in Maryland because they'll get more of a buy-in from Maryland for the new stadium than they will for D.C. But this is different than Jeff Bezos owning the team. Jeff Bezos doesn't need any help. He's worth $130 billion.

You know, Josh Harris is worth between $6 and $7 billion, and likely $2 billion of his liquidity is going into this team or near $2 billion. Well, listen, as far as the facility to play in, it's important to note that Josh Harris right now is in a fight in Philadelphia for a new downtown arena for the 76ers. Right. The 76ers are tenants at Wells Fargo Center. They don't own their own place. Right.

They want to own their own place in Center City, Philly, and Chinatown District. And that's going to cost a lot of money. There are other people involved in it, significantly wealthy people besides Josh Harris. But they're in a real political fight for that arena from resident. and Chinese businessmen in that district. So, I mean, to fight financially and politically on two fronts for a sports facility, it's going to be kind of tough. I think still, I said all along because of Snyder being so offensive.

Now, I still think that this is a – still think this is a favorite place, what it will wind up happening. I still think they'll build it right next to FedEx Field. I think they may build it closer to the metro stop out there, you know, and as part of a development where they would develop like restaurants and shops between the stadium and the metro stop out there. I think right now it's a mile away. I think, you know, I think they try to build it closer to the metro stop, and I think that's still the path of least resistance.

You know, I talked about this months ago that, let me just say this. I think Mitchell Rails will understand more than anybody, and maybe Josh Harris will also. But Howard Gutman told us a few weeks ago, Mitchell Rails and his brother Stephen were dropped off at a bus stop and they took the bus down to RFK. RFK is important to Mitchell Rails, as it is to me and many others of a generation of spending a lot of Sunday. and Monday nights in RFK Stadium. I mean, I still think that that is a game changer compared to the other two locations.

But it's more important, actually, to build a winning team. And so, you know, I talked to, I did, I think I did this with you. I forget if I did this with you or not. I created a top 10 list of things that I want in my new owner. This was back when they did the, you know, when the Bank of America announcement was made.

And, you know, I said, Number one is I just want the brand of the organization to be winning, you know, and winning Super Bowls. I don't want the brand of the team to be as Will Missilebrook had said at the time. You know, we're more than just a football team. You know, if your team name is an animal, you are kind of restricted. The name commanders allows us to go into much bigger space, media, food, fashion, pop culture, and music. I want the brand to be winning and winning Super Bowls. I don't want to hear from the Will Missile Brooks of the world about going into pop culture, music, fashion, food, and media until we've won at least three more Super Bowls.

Then it's appropriate to talk about what, you know, expanding the brand. You can't even draw people to your stadium and you're talking about expanding the brand. ballsy. But maybe that was the point, is that we couldn't expand it based on our football team. We had to expand it in other areas, which, by the way, is what Jason Wright told me. You know, when he got hired and I met with him, he said, I've got to build an organization that's losing resilient. That's my mantra is I can't worry about what the other side of the building does. I have to generate revenue. So we'll do it any way we can. I want the owner to hire a lead football person, you know, a.k.a. a general manager,

and I want that person to let that general manager hire all of the football people. I don't want ownership involvement in hiring of head coach and making football decisions. I want an owner who gives the football people total autonomy on football things and isn't meddlesome. By the way, Tommy, I had Steve Spurrier on the podcast yesterday. Yeah. Did I tell you that? How was that? No, I retweeted it for you yesterday.

So you didn't listen to it. You never listened to it. No, I don't listen to him. It was good, but he was very reluctant to really talk about the past much. But anyway, I, you know, I want an owner who figures out a way to get a stadium at RFK. I want an owner that takes the brink. brand that currently is the commanders and does a do-over. I want an owner that isn't and doesn't want to be the face of the franchise.

I want the faces of the franchise to be football people, not owners, not people like Jason Wright, no offense, but nobody else knows the chief business person in their football organization, but everybody knows Jason Wright. I want an owner who doesn't want to be on the sidelines during the games. Okay, I want that kind of owner. And by the way, to be fair, Dan's been a recluse for years. He hasn't wanted to be the face of anything or the voice of anything. Happy Thanksgiving.

I want an owner who treats customers like customers. One of the biggest complaints over the 24 years from anybody that's ever done business with this organization is they never treated us like customers. They treated us like we were lucky to be doing business with them. It was that arrogance. And, you know, bottom line is I want an owner, Tommy, who when he, Josh Harris, steps to the podium to accept the Lombardi trophy, it's the first time we've seen him or heard from him since training camp. That's what I want.

I don't know. There were other things I had on my list. I can't remember. I'm going off what I remember from the list. But anyway, yeah. But owners. Today's NFL, owners are involved. I mean, Jeff Lorry is involved in the Eagles.

I mean, you know, I mean... But Howie Roseman makes the big decisions. Howie Roseman makes the trades. I mean, Cork had to sign off on Joe Gibbs. That's different. I understand that. You know, before you pay, you know, before you make a trade for Aaron Rogers and pick up $60 million in salary, the owner's got to be consulted.

I'm not talking about that. what I'm talking about. All right. Let's talk a little bit of football. We'll come back. We'll talk a little bit of football. Tommy had some issue with Twitter. And then I'm going to have, and Tommy's not going to participate in this because we're

having some issues with our phone so we can't do a three-way interview. But I'm going to have Eben Ivy Williams, the reporter from Sportico, who broke the news on the show to end the show. All of that coming up right after. words from a few of our sponsors. This segment of the show brought to you by MyBooky. Go to MyBooky.ag or MyBooky.com. Use my promo code, Kevin D.C., and you can cash in and cash out quickly with MyBooky.

It's perfect for the NBA playoffs. Gave you another winner yesterday with the Bulls plus the points. Tommy, I've given out three NBA playing round games, all three of them, winners, three underdogs, all winners. and by the way you had another. Actually, the underdogs are four and O in the playing round right now with Oklahoma City winning last night outright as well as an underdog against New Orleans. But use my promo code, Kevin D.C.

You wager your deposit amount one time you're eligible to cash out. You can only do that at my bookie if you use my promo code, Kevin D.C. You just were telling me something during the break. What happened to you on Twitter yesterday? Yesterday? On Twitter last night, all of a sudden, I started getting followers like ants going to an anthill. I mean, it was just like 100, every, like, half hour or something like that.

How did you know that? How did you recognize that? Well, because they were clearly phony once. In other words, I would go on Twitter and there'd be like 200 likes on something I posted. Oh. And, you know, and they were all these new followers. And they're all obscure names, you know, made up names. Some of them were in Arabic language.

Some of them were Spanish, written. You know, some of them had two followers. Some had three followers. And it was just nonstop. And I had to go on Google to figure out. I mean, I complained to Twitter. I filed reports to Twitter. That's useless.

I mean, because that's a nightmare these days. But I found on Google the way to stop it was to make my Twitter account private. So it's only people who are followers now can see it. And anyone who wants to follow me would have to be approved. And that stopped it finally. You know, meanwhile, I've got 500 phony followers, and it's taken me forever, I have to go block every one of them.

Oh, boy. You know, what do you ask me to do every time you have a column out? Retweet it. Simple retweet. Right, and I always retweet it. Sometimes you have to tell me that it's out there, but I always retweet it,

but I just noticed, because I was looking at your text as you were, you said, well, you retweet my thing. I tried to retweet your thing. I could not retweet your wish. Lizards column. And I just went to do it again.

It won't let me retweet it. It is dulled out. Go to your... God, this is so boring for people. Go to the tweet of your story, and you will see, unless I already retweeted it, but usually it'll just be lit up, you know, in a color. I can't retweet your column. I can't retweet your column.

I think you're making stuff up here. I swear to you. because when you, when I saw that you asked me to do it. Well, maybe that happened because I've made it private. Although you follow me. You do follow me, don't you? Yeah. Of course I follow you.

What? It says that I'm following you. You want me to unfollow you and follow you again? No, no, no. You can't do that unless I approve it. All right. Well, I don't know if I approve it. Actually, actually right now, let me just find things you've, it won't let me

retweet any of your tweets? Yeah, that's because it's private now. Okay. And I got to keep it that way for probably another day or so before I can take that off. Until you keep these foreign intruders away from you.

You know, I just think it's the lunatic run in Twitter. Of course you do. So there was a reporter for Sports Illustrated for SI.com named David Harrison, who wrote that the commanders must draft quarterback Hennon Hooker from Tennessee and bench Sam Howell. That hooker over Hal makes a lot of

sense. This isn't the first, you know, report that Washington should be interested and might even be considering Hendon Hooker in the draft. But if they drafted Hendon Hooker, even if it were in the second round at 47 overall, or if they trade it up into the second round, you can kiss all. You can kiss of the we believe in Sam Howe. We've been high on Sam Howe. We had Sam Hal as a first or second round grade last year. You can kiss all of that goodbye. And I'm the biggest advocate of continuing to swing big.

And I would love it if they drafted a quarterback that they really fell in love with. But the bottom line is they've been pitching and selling so hard on Sam Hal that if they draft a guy like Hendon Hooker in the first two rounds, I would say if they draft a quarterback in the first three, rounds. Well, then that is confirmation that they really don't know whether or not Sam Howell is the guy or not. And they've been bullshitting us all along, which I don't think they've been bullshitting us all along on Sam Hal. I don't think that's it. I think they do like him. And I think when they drafted him, they liked him. But this insistence on making themselves look so smart because he went 11 for 19 in a game and beat the Cowboys in the season finale. And now, you know, backtracking to say we had first and second round grades and Ron Rivera talking about all the mock drafters that he reached out to say, hey, what did you have on him? And all of them had higher grades. You drafted them in the fifth round. You drafted Percy Butler before you drafted Sam Howe.

I want them to keep swinging and bring in as much competition. But if they end up picking a quarterback like Hendon Hooker, I'm not talking about Price Young or CJ. Stroud. I'm talking about Hendon Hooker. Hendon Hooker is in the next tier of guys right now. And I know that he may move up into the first round so that they get the fifth year on him. You know, a team at the end of the year drafting kind of a project guy or a guy, I don't want to call Hooker a project guy. He had great success and was a Heisman Trophy winner before he tore his ACL. But man, if they were to pick Hendon Hooker, Tommy, I say first three rounds, that is proof that they've been completely winging it bullshit style on Sam Howl. Certainly the head coach

has been doing it. I would agree. I would agree. But I think that's the case no matter what they do. But yeah, I would agree with that. If they were to trade up for Will Levis or trade up for Anthony Richardson or pick one of those two if they dropped to them at 16, that's different. That's different. You know, because those guys right now are not nearly the question mark that Hendon Hooker is. I know they brought Hendon Hooker in, and there's a lot of discussion about Hendon Hooker, you know, as a possible Washington pick, you know, but I don't see it personally. I just don't see how Ron backtracks on all of the pitching he's been doing on Sam Hal.

If you picked Anthony Richardson, it's like, look, we just had him so high up on our board. And he fell to us at 16. And we love Sam, and Sam's going to get a shot. But, you know, we're bringing in as many people as we can until we're 100% sure we found one. But if it's Hooker or if it's somebody like Tanner McKee in the third round, uh-uh. We're here. We think that Josh Harris being in the league, already a minority owner with the Steelers has a pipeline to personnel and information,

do we think he has a management team already in mind? I don't know. That's what I wanted to get to next. Who stays for now? Let's say that he takes control of the team like post-league meetings at the end of next month, where, you know, the league votes and everything's finalized, they close, and he takes over. nobody on the football side is leaving. It's too late. Ron Rivera and Eric B. Enemy and Marty Herney and Martin Mayhew and all, I think the football side stays.

I think the interesting part will be what happens to Jason Wright and his team. Do they have a business team and prefer people to bring in to run the business side of the organization? and they'll make their calls on the football side, you know, after 2023. Or if they start off slowly, 1 in 5, 1 and 6, maybe, you know, at some time during the season, they'll start letting people go. But I think more interestingly will be what happens out of the gate with the people that we know that in most cities they don't know, people like Jason Wright and Gene Medina, who's their director of communications.

and some of their key, you know, the new chief financial officer who took, I forget, what's his name's, a place. Like, those are the kinds of people that they could have replacements for. They could have a management team that they're ready to bring in. By the way, they could have a head football person that they want to bring in, and that head football person won't make a decision until the end of next year, but will, you know, indoctrinate himself into the organization and get to know everybody that's there. That's possible, I guess, Tommy. you know, to bring in a football, you know, a chief football person.

I think it's possible. I think it's possible they can still make football moves. Not wrong. Coaching staff and the general manager staff. I don't. I don't think that they're going to fire. I think it depends on who they have in mind. Who do you think could be a coach?

I don't know. I don't know. Okay. I don't know what I'm saying. like Josh Harris knows probably or at least has a pipeline for the knowledge of who are the hot assistants right now in the NFL? And does he want to grab his now before they're all up for grabs next year? I think it's possible that they could bring in a football person, a football executive, a lead football executive. I think that's possible.

And that could mean Martin Mayhew, Marty Herney, and others could be in trouble. But I bet as it relates to the football team, coaches, players, et cetera, I don't think anything's going to happen until we get into the season at least and probably not until the end of next year, you know, unless they really suck next year. Probably not. But if I had a chance to hire Jim Harbaugh, I do it on social. live 30th. You want to sell some tickets?

You want to sell, you want to sit? Get people back in that stadium? Hire that guy. How many people are going to be back in that stadium anyway? Like, let's think about the opener. Like, you know, imagine the Sunday night opener is against the Cowboys. That opener could be one that I'd even want to go to. And I haven't been to a game since before the pandemic.

Oh, yeah. That would be, must be there for that. Absolutely. Yeah. Maybe we'll go together. That would be fun. All right. Do you have anything else for me because I'm going to bring Eben Novi Williams on from Sportico to find out all about what he reported and what he knows and maybe there's even an update to the story here for the end of the podcast. Anything else from you? No, I got nothing else for you, boss. All right, I'll talk to you on Tuesday. All right. Jumping on with us right now is Eben Novi Williams. He writes for Sportico. He broke the news earlier today that Dan Snyder has reached an agreement to sell the commanders to Josh Harris, the Josh Harris group with Mitchell Rails and with Magic Johnson and other limited partners for $6 billion. All right.

So let's just start with the. obvious, Eben. Tell us what you guys learned specifically. There is, as you said, there is a deal in place in principle. They are still hammering out, from what I understand, kind of the finer tooth comb legal parts with legal teams on both sides. And then once that happens, the contract gets shipped over to the NFL, the NFL takes a look at it. But what I was told is that this is likely on track to have all the, the eyes dotted the keys crossed, and have a sign to. agreement at some point early next week.

So just for everybody that doesn't understand how this works, this signed agreement when, so they've reached an agreement in principle. They haven't signed this agreement yet. But there's still a process after an agreement's in place for Josh Harris to buy the team, which would include things like the league's owners, you know, voting three quarters would have to vote for Josh Harris' bid to be approved? You're not saying that that'll be wrapped up at this point. That will not be wrapped up in the next two days, no. Although I do think a lot of those things

are going to happen faster than they often do for other sales. And I say that for two reasons. One, Josh Harris is already a minority owner in the Steelers. So he has already been vetted to a degree by the NFL already. It's a bit stricter of a vetting process when you go from minority to control owner, but Josh is not someone who I think is going to have any trouble or need any kind of advanced scrutiny in terms of his finances where he got his money,

etc. And then the second thing is, and this is no surprise to you or any of your listeners, but there are a lot of people at the NFL that are excited about the prospect of someone not named Dan Snyder owning the team moving forward. And I don't say that to imply that they would cut

any corners in terms of that process. But I think if there are ways to speed that process up, I think the NFL is going to be amenable to getting all those things done so that they can get this deal signed, delivered, have an announcement, and move forward with Josh Harris as a new control owner of the commanders. All right. So why today, why did it happen quickly? There was all the reporting on Bezos yesterday dropping out. You know, many of us thought Snyder was potentially using Bezos as a way to try to drive up the price. Maybe he's using even a Postalopoulos for that.

Give me your thoughts on all of that stuff and why now? I think the truth is that, and I don't know how many, I don't know for sure how many other bidders were there, but from what I understand, this process has been fairly stagnant for the past few weeks that Dan had an idea of where Tillman Fertita and his group was, both from a financing and from a pricing standpoint. And I know that Josh Harris and his group have been pretty clear about what they thought this team was worth for a while now as well.

Jeff Bezos, who you mentioned, was the big question, the multi-hundred-billion-dollar cloud looming over this whole process. And my guess is that once Dan understood that there was not going to be an offer here from Jeff Bezos, and once groups like Josh Harris's group also understood that there was not going to be an offer from Jeff Bezos, then I think the process moves fairly quickly from there, where Dan says, okay, so this is what's in front of me right now is what I got, and I need to make a decision based on that. Do you have this sense that it was really important for Dan to get a six in front of the B in terms of the price? I think Dan wanted, usually in this process, people just want the highest number possible. There may be a world in which he prefers one buyer over the other.

But yeah, but most sellers just want the highest price possible, right? And there were talks at some point about whether this team would sell for $7 billion or more, I think pretty early in the process that became very close. clear that that that was likely not going to happen. But I never got a sense that it may be true. I don't know. But I never got a sense that he had some kind of hard drop. You got to get me, you got to get to this number or we don't do a deal. But sure, I think it's fair to say that he just probably wanted the highest number he could get. We're talking to even Novi Williams. He broke the news. Sportico was the first to break the news that there is an agreement, at least in principle,

for Josh Harris to buy the commanders. There's still some teas to be. crossed and eyes to be dotted. You know, I was just reading a little while ago with my podcast partner, Tom Leverro, the Adam Schaefter tweet just about Apostolopoulos and a source telling him that it's a head-to-head race. It's anybody's game. Obviously, you think it's Harris. Do you think Apostolopoulopoulos could be a late entrant into this thing before a deal signed or not?

from the people that we have talked to, no, I do not think that Apocetopoulos is still in the running. The big caveat, I guess I would say there, is that Dan is fairly volatile as a businessman and a negotiator, from what I understand, and who knows until his signature is on that piece of paper exactly what's in his mind. But the impression that we've gotten, as we reported, from people that we've talked to, is that this is, They are exclusively going down this route with Josh Harris. They have an agreement on price. And again, it could be a matter of hours, if not days, until a contract hits the NFL. You said that you think that the process after the agreement is signed and in place to wrap this up

and to get to closing and the money being wired, it will be a faster process because Josh Harris has been vetted. He's a small stakeholder in Pittsburgh. He was a bidder on the Denver team. I'm just curious, given that Josh Harris and Mitchell, Rails and Magic Johnson probably have, well, let me ask you, how many additional investors do you know are a part of this deal? Because it's been our understanding that Rails and Harris and Magic certainly don't have the $6 billion in total, that there are other limited partners in the deal.

Your understanding is right. I don't know of right now for sure that I can say publicly other LPs that are part of this deal, but there are definitely going to be others. And one thing I'll say about the way these processes often unfold, it's sometimes easier to raise money from minority partners once a deal is reached. So Josh can turn to people who are thinking about investing in the commanders and say, hey, I got this deal, it's a $6 billion deal. Let's talk about economics to see where you want to come in.

So he may have some minority partners already part of this process. And I would not be shocked if there were other minority partners that join up or get announced at later dates as well. If you remember the Denver Broncos, which sold last year, a number of their investors like Lewis Hamilton, the F1 driver, like Condoleezza Rice, former Secretary of State. Some of those investors came on after Rob Walton's deal was reached to buy the Broncos for $4.6 billion. So, again, I think there's probably some LPs that are already committed, and I think there's going to be even more. or that likely join up after this deal is done. One of the reasons I was asking is don't they have to be vetted to? Yes, again, as I mentioned with Harris,

but the process for LPs is a little bit different from a vetting process than the controlling stakeholder, right? The NFL has very strict rules and has very strict requirements for the person who has to be the one to make decisions and spend the money if things go wrong, right? and someone who owns 5% of a team is not that person. So the process is a little bit different, and if we're talking about celebrities,

sometimes that process is even a bit easier. But yes, again, I think the process to approve Mitchell and Josh, as the two main money people here, I don't think it's going to be complicated, and I don't think it's going to take very long. All right, so what's not too long? When will we know that we officially have our team back in D.C. with a new owner?

When will the closing happen? and when will the money be wired? So the closing could take a few weeks. It could be maybe even a little bit more than that. But I would not be shocked if next week there is an announcement that a deal has been reached. The NFL has looked at it. It's been signed. And then you get to the owners have to vote.

You get to kind of the rubber stamp process that we're talking about. But the $6 billion is not going to be wired next week. That seems fast. There is an NFL owner's meeting next month. That could be where a vote happens. They could try to figure out a way to do a vote beforehand. that would not shock me either. But yes, I think it's going to be a little bit longer

until the absolute final dollars has hit bank accounts. But I don't think it's going to be too long before a little bit more details about the agreement are going public and maybe even being announced. By the way, I mean, you may not know the answer to this, but given that Dan has a bunch of debt on this team, you know, roughly a billion dollars in debt, do those debt holders, don't they get paid out as part of the sale?

I mean, they don't have to wait for him to get it and then become a receivable for him, right? That's a good question. And I don't know the nature of the debt that he took out and where the priorities lie with that and what that process is. My gut says there's a chance that he gets this massive check and then he pays people back again. I don't know exactly how all that was structured. But I don't think that that's the kind of thing that would hold up this process necessarily on the by side. Did you find out whether or not he got any of those indemnification requests that he wanted, that were reported on that he wanted to be indemnified from any sort of future league legal issues and costs associated with it? I have not heard anything on that.

It's a really good question. I'm trying to find answers on that. One of the interesting kind of wrinkles in all that again is that there's so many people in and around the NFL, owners, executives in the league's New York office, so much. people want Dan out in Washington. And again, part of this conversation, I think, is going to be when that is right on the horizon, what are people willing to do? What are they, what concessions are they willing to make to speed that process up?

So I don't have the actual answer to that, but I will be very curious, as you will, and I think a lot of people are going to be about what, if there is any kind of agreement between the NFL and Dan on his way out, what that actually looks like. All right. Two more. What kind of owner do you think Josh has? Harris will be. Josh is going to be someone, and we can talk about the stadium briefly.

Josh is going to be someone who's going to spend to make sure the stadium happens and is world-class. And I would imagine he's also going to spend in the other ways that NFL owners have the ability to influence teams, right? So anything from coaches to executives, things like that. He is in Philadelphia, as an example, right? He's a co-owner of 76ers. They're in the process right now of starting and building a very expensive downtown arena for the 76ers.

He also owns the arena where the Devils play in New Jersey. He's well-versed in stadiums and the requirements of modern-day trappings of a good venue. Mitchell Rails obviously has a lot of experience business ties, real estate ties in the D.C. area. I imagine he's also going to be critically valuable and important as a partner in trying to get the stadium stuff done. but my guess is that Josh is going to spare no expense, especially at the start, making it clear to players, to the league, and I think most importantly to Commander's fans, that this is a new era. Do you have any sense as to whether or not they'll explore changing the branding and the name again? I don't. It would be one of my first questions as well. I can guarantee that they've thought about it, and I would probably guarantee that they have an answer to that. whether they want to go through that process, whether they would like to.

But again, I don't have a, I don't know for sure whether that's on their agenda or if they're happy with where things are or if they're going to push for something different. Eben Novi Williams, at Novi underscore Williams on Twitter. Sportico, the first to have the news, that there is an agreement in principle with Josh Harris and the Snyders for the team to be sold to the Harris. group. Evan, thanks so much for your time. I really appreciate it. Hey, thanks for having me. All right, guys, that's it for the day. I'll be back tomorrow, and I'm sure we'll have a lot more information then.