National Football League owners don’t have enough votes to force Washington Commanders owner Dan Snyder to sell the team — even as he stubbornly sticks to a record-breaking $6 billion asking price for the embattled franchise, The Post has learned.
Owners of the NFL’s 32 teams were hoping to reach a resolution to the lengthy saga by their annual meeting, which will be held March 26 in Phoenix.
However, a source close to one NFL owner told The Post that the team bigwigs can’t reach the 75% threshold needed to force a sale by Snyder, a league pariah who faces allegations of sexual harassment, tax evasion and recent reports of a criminal FBI investigation into bank fraud.
“This is the boy’s club of boy’s clubs,” another source close to an NFL owner said, adding he is not surprised that at least a quarter of the owners would not vote to oust Snyder.
“They want a higher bar so there is no precedent for them” to be forced to sell their own teams, the source speculated.
Meanwhile, Snyder nemesis Jeff Bezos recently signed a confidentiality agreement, signaling he may finally be allowed to enter the bidding process, sources close to Bezos told The Post. It was not clear whether Bezos inked the confidentiality pact with Snyder or the NFL.
Snyder had refused to allow the Amazon founder to bid on the team after the Bezos-owned Washington Post’s coverage exposed the alleged toxic management culture at the team — reports that helped fuel efforts to push Snyder out of the NFL.
The Commanders recently told the NFL there are “multiple bidders” whom the league will “love” and that the sales price “is looking good,” according to the Washington Post.
Snyder has indicated he won’t accept anything short of $6 billion to part with his boyhood team, but the highest bid in a private auction came in at $5.5 billion from Houston Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta, as The Post previously reported.
The other known bidder was Philadelphia 76ers owner Josh Harris, whose attempts to buy the Commanders may have been bolstered by the recent addition of Danaher Corp. co-founder Mitchell Rales, a DC-area native with an estimated net worth of $5.6 billion.
However, both Fertitta and Harris believe Snyder’s price for the team is astronomical, sources said, considering the Denver Broncos — a more stable and profitable franchise — fetched a record $4.65 billion last August from Walmart heir Rob Walton.
At informal NFL meetings held last Tuesday in Palm Beach, Fla., owners put off making a decision about a possible vote to remove Snyder if he refuses to sell the fabled franchise, according the Washington Post.
One major sticking point in the sale of the team — aside from the eye-popping asking price — is Snyder’s demand to be indemnified from any future litigation against him by the league, Bezos’ paper reported. It went on to cite a source who said the sales process may now drag out into the summer or even after kickoff in the fall.
The Commanders, NFL and Bezos declined comment.
By: Ny Post
