The pending $9.612 billion sale of the Seahawks signals to industry analysts that some NFL franchises could be worth $15 billion to $20 billion in the not-too-distant future. But for the first time in several years, it’s not clear to those in and around the league which team will be the next to go on the market.
“I don’t know who’s going to be next,” said Irwin A. Kishner, a partner and co-chair of the corporate department and sports law group at Herrick, Feinstein LLP. “These things usually sort of, if you will, pop up. But there will be a next. … Who’s next is frankly anybody’s guess.”
After the Commanders were sold from Daniel Snyder to a group led by private equity investor Josh Harris for $6.05 billion in 2023, it was widely assumed within the NFL that the Seahawks would be the next team to be sold. They had been owned by the estate of late owner Paul G. Allen since the Microsoft co-founder’s death in 2018. Allen had directed that the Seahawks and the NBA team that he owned, the Trail Blazers, be sold and the proceeds donated to charity.
It was only a matter of when. Earlier this month, Allen’s estate announced that it had reached an agreement to sell the Seahawks to a group led by the family of venture capitalist Vinod Khosla. The NFL’s team owners are scheduled to meet Aug. 26 in Atlanta to potentially take an approval vote on the deal. The league told teams that Khosla’s wife, Neeru Khosla, would serve as the controlling owner if the purchase is ratified, as expected. Their son, Neal Khosla, is to have a “significant” leadership role in ownership of the franchise, the NFL told teams.
Between the Commanders and Seahawks sales, ownership of the Colts passed from Jim Irsay to his three daughters following his death last year. All three had served as executives and part-owners of the team since 2012. Carlie Irsay-Gordon took over for her father as the franchise’s principal owner.
The sale of the Commanders came amid a series of controversies involving Snyder and the franchise. The sale of the Broncos in 2022 from the Pat Bowlen trust to a group led by Walmart heir Rob Walton, his daughter Carrie Walton Penner and her husband Greg Penner for $4.65 billion was preceded by a legal dispute among members of Bowlen’s family.
“There are no teams that are going to be sold in the foreseeable future,” said prominent sports business consultant Marc Ganis, an adviser to various NFL owners. “Events would have to occur that are not happy events that might change that. But as things stand right now, there are no teams that are for sale or likely to be sold in the near term.”
Who Could Be Next?
Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti has said that he will sell his team rather than pass ownership to his family members. Bisciotti, 66, said at a news conference in January that he’d like to win a couple more Super Bowl titles with the Ravens and then get out of ownership, ideally around age 75.
Dolphins owner Stephen Ross, who is 86, told Bloomberg in January that he’d been offered close to $15 billion to sell the team but declined, with plans to keep the franchise in his family. Ross has sold minority stakes in the Dolphins and related assets.
There was speculation this year that Vikings owners Zygi and Mark Wilf might be interested in selling the franchise, based on the team’s reduced spending on its player payroll. But the Wilfs plan to keep the team in their family, according to people familiar with the league-wide ownership dynamics.
Similarly, those people do not believe that the Raiders’ Mark Davis or the Chargers’ Dean Spanos have any plans to sell controlling interests in their teams. Davis reportedly gave Raiders part-owner Egon Durban, a private equity executive, the right of first refusal if Davis opts to sell his controlling interest in the team. Tom Gores, the owner of the NBA’s Pistons, purchased a 27 percent stake in the Chargers in 2024, resolving a long-running ownership dispute among siblings in the Spanos family.
Fans signed an online petition in January 2024 seeking to remove David Tepper as the owner of the Panthers, around the time that the NFL fined him $300,000 for “unacceptable conduct” after he was shown on video throwing what appeared to be a drink in the direction of Jaguars fans from his suite during a game in Jacksonville. But Tepper, a highly successful hedge fund manager who is the president and founder of Appaloosa Management, has given no indication that he intends to sell the team that he purchased in 2018 for $2.275 billion.
The Panthers reached the playoffs last season. The team and Tepper Sports & Entertainment released new renderings Thursday of a major renovation to Bank of America Stadium, along with announcing an extension of the stadium’s naming rights deal.
People within the league expect ownership of the Giants to remain within the Mara and Tisch families. One co-owner, John Mara, has announced that he is undergoing treatment for cancer. In March, following the public release of documents containing emails connecting Giants co-owner Steve Tisch to late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the league informed teams that Tisch and his siblings, Jonathan Tisch and Laurie Tisch, were transferring their remaining ownership shares into trusts for their children. Last year, the Giants sold a 10% stake in the team to Julia Koch in a deal that valued the franchise at $10 billion.
“I do not know of any owner that’s looking to sell at this time, beyond the Seahawks transaction,” a high-ranking official with one NFL team said in recent months.
Sky-High Valuations
The sale price of the Seahawks represented a 59% increase over the Commanders’ price. That’s for a team that is well run, has a fervent fan base and is the reigning Super Bowl champion but is not located in a mega-sized market.
“Every time one of these gargantuan sales takes place, people say, ‘Wow, that’s a lot. Did somebody overpay?’” Kishner said. “And … every single time I’ve seen it, it always turns out that was a really smart move.”
Another jump approaching 60% would put the price tag for the next NFL franchise sale above $15 billion.
“We are embarking on, either this year or next year, that the average NFL team valuation … will exceed $10 billion,” Ganis said. “Whether that’s this year or next year, we’re getting to that. … The top teams are going to be in the $15 [billion] to $20 billion range within a few years.”
The price associated with the next NFL team sale will depend on the particular franchise involved, the size of the market and the timing, among other potential factors. NFL owners expect to complete a contract extension with commissioner Roger Goodell in the coming months, people familiar with the owners’ views have said, in preparation for the league’s negotiations for new broadcasting deals and a collective bargaining agreement with the NFL Players Association that could include an 18-game season.
The continuation of such league-wide stability and prosperity could contribute to franchise values soaring even further.
“We don’t have a sense of who’s next because there’s no driving force to sell,” Ganis said. “The league is doing well and is on a very significant upward trajectory. It has only scratched the surface of what’s going to be available globally, internationally and by using AI to personalize things. So the NFL has very significant additional runway, at least a decade’s worth.”
