Amazon tycoon Jeff Bezos has ‘an interest’ in buying Seahawks? But they aren’t for sale
Amazon tycoon Jeff Bezos apparently has “an interest” in buying the Seahawks.
Except they aren’t for sale. Not yet, anyway.
The Washington Post reported Thursday that Bezos “has expressed an interest” in buying the Seahawks, according to a person familiar with the NFL’s thinking who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.
The Post reported Jay Carney, a chief spokesman for Seattle-based Amazon, declined to comment on Bezos’s behalf.
Why should folks in Seattle pay some heed to the Post’s report?
Bezos owns the newspaper. It’s not a huge stretch to see where that leak may be coming from.
The NFL would love to have Bezos join their brotherhood of owners. At a net worth of $110 billion, according to Bloomberg last month, the man who founded Amazon in the garage of his home in the Seattle suburbs decades ago would be welcomed by the league with open—extremely open—arms.
Bezos and Bill Gates, co-founder with Paul Allen of Redmond’s Microsoft Corp., are the richest men in the world in net worth, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
NFL franchises are valued at around $2 billion or more each. The Seahawks, with their recent success of six playoffs and two Super Bowls in seven years plus the booming Seattle corporate economy, would likely sell for far more than that. Yet Bezos could afford to buy any NFL team out of his bedside piggy bank.
And the team in Seattle, of course, makes the most sense for him.
The Post quoted New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft saying of Bezos: “I’m sure that eventually it would be in everyone’s best interests if someone that’s as community-oriented as him gets involved in the Seattle situation.”
The Seattle “situation?”
The Seahawks’ ownership future became a question and matter of supposition after Paul Allen died 13 months ago.
The Seahawks owner’s sister, Jody Allen, transitioned to the head of the franchise after her brother’s death in October 2018. In terms of day-to-day operations of the Seahawks and who coach Pete Carroll and general manager John Schneider ultimately answer to, its Jody Allen. The franchise has remained on the same philosophy, direction and plan, football-wise, by keeping the team in the Allen family.
The point man for Carroll and Schneider to ownership is the same man it was under Paul Allen: Seahawks vice chair Bert Kolde.
The Seahawks are giant in the Pacific Northwest’s sports scene and the NFL is mammoth in American sports. But Seattle’s football team is but one asset in Allen’s multi-billion, worldwide interest ranging from philanthropy to space and deep-sea exploration. It will take lawyers years to review each piece of Allen’s estate for succession plans and decisions on whether to sell a particular asset, for instance. The Seahawks are in line with all of Allen’s other interests and holding for review and decisions.
In the meantime, it’s been status quo for Carroll, Schneider and the Seahawks’ football operations.
For example: Jody Allen signing off on Russell Wilson’s new contract this spring that set an NFL record for total worth at $140 million. On the night in April the deal got done Schneider called Jody Allen. She approved including a no-trade clause.
That underlined what had become obvious post-Paul Allen, that “she’s our boss,” as Schneider said.
“She was super-involved. She was great,” Schneider said of Jody Allen in the owner role of approving details in the quarterback’s new mega deal.
Jody Allen had been the vice chair of Paul Allen’s First & Goal Inc. That’s the company he formed to run the Seahawks when he bought it 33 years ago to keep it in Seattle. The Microsoft Corp. co-founder bought the Seahawks when previous owner Ken Behring was about to move the team to Anaheim, and in fact had already moved Seahawks’ offices there in February 1996.
Jody Allen had long been thought to eventually gain a more visible ownership role with the Seahawks.
The NFL has declined through league spokesman Brian McCarthy requests for comment on a succession plan of Seahawks’ ownership, “out of respect for Mr. Allen and his family.”
Paul Allen had to, per NFL conditions of team ownership, have filed a succession plan with the league beyond him being the Seahawks’ owner. The league requires owners to keep those succession plans updated. So there is indeed a plan.
The Seahawks have had no comment on what that succession plan is.
Bezos has never publicly said he is interested in joining a growing number of technology giants in owning a sports team. His Amazon has a deal to stream NFL Thursday night games to Amazon Prime subscribers.
Bezos watched February’s Super Bowl in the suite of NFL commissioner Roger Goodell. Bezos posed for a picture with Seahawks Shaquill and Shaquem Griffin while at the championship game.
This story was originally published November 14, 2019 at 4:32 PM.
