The Seahawks made headlines when it was announced that the franchise owned by the Paul G. Allen Trust was going up for sale.
It isn't often we have NFL teams go up for sale, particularly given the financial benefits of having a team, and even less so after a franchise has become a Super Bowl champion.
But that's exactly what is happening with the Seattle Seahawks, with the franchise owned by the Paul G. Allen Trust going up for sale shortly after winning the Super Bowl.
Exactly how much the Seahawks are worth is unknown, but you are only worth what someone will pay for, and in Seattle's case, as defending Super Bowl champs, you can argue their stock has never been higher.
That would then lend itself to a huge number of potential buyers who want to get their foot in the door of a prestigious part of sports -- being an NFL owner.
But it appears that it isn't open to just anyone. Granted, not many have at least $7 billion lying around to purchase the team.
However, for ESPN's Seth Wickersham, who was a guest on Seattle Sports' Bump and Stacy, he detailed that there is a list of approved buyers that the franchise will most likely choose from.
“They have certain benchmarks and standards that they want each potential buyer to have met to try to make the process more expedient, and frankly to protect the other owners when a team comes up,” Wickersham said. “And so they kind of have this list – for a long time even (NFL commissioner) Roger Goodell wasn’t privy to it, I don’t know if that’s still the case… It’s essentially a list of, like, approved buyers.
“Now, does (the next Seahawks owner) have to come from that list? No, but knowing the NFL and knowing how few people there are in America who can afford to spend $7 billion or maybe even more on an NFL team, my guess would be that it would come from that list, even if we don’t know exactly who it would be at this moment.”
So, we now have an idea of what sort of process will be taking place over the coming months.
Want names? Let's toss out there Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Larry Ellison (Oracle), Steve Ballmer (NBA Clippers) and Melinda Gates (philanthropist).
This won't be no quick deal, though. The last NFL team to be sold was the Washington Commanders, who went for $6.05 billion to a private equity group led by Josh Harris.
How much will the Seahawks go for? Your guess is as good as mine.
But it is clear that the NFL is careful about who they want to become owners, and the Seahawks will no doubt work through the list of approved buyers to try and find the right deal.