Seahawks Sale Watch: Zuckerberg, Cook Among Rumored Bidders

The Seahawks have been on the market for two months, and the process is already in full swing.

At least four potential majority buyers have expressed interest, including two very familiar names: tech titans Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg and Apple’s Tim Cook, who recently announced he will step down as CEO and become EVP of the company’s board of directors.

Five sources familiar with the matter tell Front Office Sports they’ve heard Zuckerberg is considering a bid, while four say Cook is separately weighing an offer. The identities of the other two potential bidders were not clear, nor was it known whether any formal offers had been made.

Representatives for Allen & Co., the bank running the sale process for the Seahawks, as well as the seller, the Paul G. Allen estate, declined to comment. Representatives for Meta and Apple did not immediately respond to requests for comment, and direct representatives for Zuckerberg and Cook could not immediately be reached. Following publication of this story, a source close to Apple told FOS the rumor of his interest in the Seahawks is “completely false.”

Zuckerberg has a net worth of more than $206 billion, while Cook’s net worth is $2.9 billion, according to Forbes.

The Seahawks were put up for sale on Feb. 18, 10 days after the team beat the Patriots in Super Bowl LX, the second championship in franchise history. Any deal would require a vote by the full group of NFL owners, with a three-fourths approval necessary. 

The most recent change-of-control sale in the NFL was the Commanders, which controversial former owner Dan Snyder sold in 2023 to a group led by Josh Harris, in a deal valued at $6.05 billion. Multiple minority stakes in teams have been sold since then at higher franchise valuations. In September, the Giants sold a 10% stake to Julie Koch and members of her billionaire family at a $10 billion valuation, and in March the Dolphins sold a 1% stake to Chinese American technology entrepreneur Lin Bin at a reported $12.5 billion valuation.

Sources are mixed on what valuation the Seahawks will fetch, with some believing it will surpass $10 billion, while others say it could be more in the $8 billion range. Regardless, it is widely expected to break the record set by the sale of the Commanders.

The planned sale of the Seahawks is in line with the wishes of the late Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen, who mandated the eventual sale of his sports holdings before he died in 2018. Those assets included the Seahawks, the NBA’s Trail Blazers, and a 25% stake in MLS’s Seattle Sounders (Allen’s sister, Jody Allen, serves as executor and trustee of the Paul G. Allen estate). The sale of the Blazers to a group led by Tom Dundon, which valued the team at north of $4 billion, closed in March.