Washington Commanders co-owner Dan Snyder has agreed to sell the NFL franchise to a group led by American investor Josh Harris in a record deal.
The deal would cost around $6bn (£4.8bn), making it the most expensive sports team buy in the world.
According to Forbes, the team is the eighth most valuable team in world sport and was purchased by Snyder and his wife Tanya for $750 million in 1999.
Harris’ group includes NBA legend Magic Johnson and billionaire Mitchell Rales.
Harris is already a co-owner of the Philadelphia 76ers in NBA basketball and the New Jersey Devils in ice hockey in the NHL, in addition to being the minority owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers in the NFL and a general partner of Premier Football Club. Crystal Palace League.
Any sale of an NFL franchise must be approved by the league’s finance committee and ratified by three-quarters of the league’s 32 club owners, who are due to meet in Minneapolis May 22-24.
“We are very pleased to have reached an agreement for the sale of the Commanders franchise with Josh Harris and his impressive group of partners,” Tanya and Dan Snyder said in a statement.
“We look forward to the speedy completion of this transaction and to entrenching Josh and the team for years to come.”
The sale of Premier League side Chelsea last year to US investor Todd Boehly and private equity firm Clearlake Capital was worth £4.25billion.
The Snyders hired Bank of America Securities in November 2022 to consider a potential sale of the franchise.
Childhood fan of the team, Dan Snyder vowed never to change his old name, the Redskins, despite this. long criticized as offensive to Native Americans.
The NFL franchise retired its former name in July 2020 before announcing it would be known as commanders from February 2022.
During the Snyders’ tenure, the team also came under investigation for having a “toxic work culture,” and a US report found that the team and the NFL had covered for decades of sexual misconduct.
A 79-page report says 58-year-old businessman Dan Snyder “authorized and participated in workplace misconduct” and “engaged in tactics used to intimidate, monitor and pay the victims”.
