Could Promotion-Relegation work in College Football?
NEW YORK — There’s nothing officially on the agenda related to Washington Commanders owner Dan Snyder as owners meet at a luxury hotel here on Tuesday.
That doesn’t mean he won’t be a topic of conversation behind closed doors.
Owners interviewed by Front Office Sports said all they’ve had to go on so far are news media reports over the last several months ranging from allegations of financial irregularities to Snyder compiling “dirt” on them.
“We haven’t had any league-wide conversations about [the allegations related to Snyder],” one owner told FOS. “All you hear is the news out of Washington. We haven’t seen the actual evidence.”
Snyder’s wife and Commanders co-CEO, Tanya Snyder, will represent that the NFL’s fall meeting.
The latest report came from The Washington Post on Monday that the D.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine is close to concluding his investigation. A source with knowledge of the matter told FOS that that particular probe will likely lead to a lawsuit, not a criminal filing. It’s not known what specific allegations Racine could move on.
The D.C. Attorney General’s office has not returned a single text, email, or call from FOS this year.
There remain five current investigations into the Commanders and Snyder: the second independent NFL investigation led by former SEC chair Mary Jo White, the House Oversight Committee, and with the attorneys general in Virginia, Maryland, and D.C.
None of the final findings have been released so far, although the Oversight Committee released a series of allegations when NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell testified in June.
While the news reports on Snyder have mounted and there is a sense of frustration over Snyder, there’s unlikely to be a push at these meetings to oust him. The NFL has never removed an owner, and sources tell FOS that the most likely route would be to first urge Snyder to sell.
It takes 24 votes to remove a fellow owner — the same threshold to approve a new one — and owners are hesitant to set a precedent minus proof of misdeeds.
Snyder has continually denied the allegations against him, including from the two women who accused him of sexual misconduct/harassment.
Snyder settled with one woman stemming from an incident on his private plate in 2009 for $1.6 million. Former Commanders cheerleader and marketing manager Tiffani Johnston alleged Snyder put his hand on her thigh under a table at a networking event, an allegation that came to light as she testified in front of the Oversight Committee in February.
