When former Washington Commanders owner Dan Snyder finally put the team up for sale in November 2022, many believed Amazon founder Jeff Bezos would be the logical buyer. The NFL had gone into business with Amazon, and there were rumors that others wanted Bezos in the NFL’s inner circle. Additionally, Bezos owned a home in D.C. and The Washington Post.
You can count Josh Harris, the eventual winner of the Commanders’ bidding process, among those who believed Bezos would own the team.
“When the Commanders were potentially for sale, it started at 26North, and I had moved on, and my friend Mark Ein, who is sitting in the audience there, said, ‘Come on, Josh, let’s look at the Commanders,’” Harris said at CNBC Ceo Council Summit.
“And I said, come on, I am not going to price the Commanders for Jeff Bezos. I’ve done this before, and we’re going to spend a lot of time and get outbid. And that started a whole process of first Mark nagging me, introducing me to Mitch Rales. We created this incredible group and ultimately went through a super-complicated process which I can go into, but basically, it’s one of the harder deals I’ve ever had to accomplish.”
Harris was referring to the process of needing a large group to buy the Commanders, which has led the NFL to rethink how team sales could go in the future.
Harris was a finalist to purchase the Denver Broncos in 2022 and was willing to pay $5 billion. However, he received no assurances and moved on before the Walton-Penner family bought the team. Harris later called that a blessing in disguise, as Washington was the team he grew up rooting for as a native of the area.
Here’s the full video of Harris’ appearance, courtesy of our friends at Hogs Haven.