Daniel Snyder considers ‘potential transactions’ for Washington Commanders

“Dan and Tanya Snyder and the Washington Commanders announced today that they have hired BofA Securities to consider potential transactions,” the Commanders said in their statement. “The Snyders remain committed to the team, all of its employees and its countless fans to putting the best product on the field and continuing the work to set the gold standard for workplaces in the NFL.”

After buying out his minority partners in March 2021, Snyder and family members own the entire franchise. Daniel Snyder led a group of investors that purchased the team and its stadium in 1999 for $800 million from the Jack Kent Cooke estate. Forbes estimated in August that the Commanders are worth $5.6 billion. One person familiar with NFL franchise transactions said Daniel Snyder recently had been interested in attempting to sell minority stakes in the team but did not know whether that remains his intention. Two others familiar with the NFL’s inner workings said it was unclear to them what Snyder intends to do.

“We are exploring all options,” a Commanders spokesperson said.

The pool of buyers for a minority stake in any NFL team is small, given the rapidly escalating values of franchises. Based on a $5.6 billion valuation, a 40-percent stake in the Commanders would cost $2.24 billion. Minority stakes are typically discounted roughly 20 percent because they carry no power in the team’s decision-making. Even at a 20-percent discount, $1.79 billion would be a steep price for buyers to pay for a minority stake in asset they can’t control.

Moreover, any potential transaction would require approval of three quarters of the other team owners, league spokesman Brian McCarthy said in a statement Wednesday. And such a vote would take place at a time when Snyder faces intense scrutiny, under investigation by the NFL, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform and the attorneys general of D.C. and Virginia. Before Snyder bought out his limited partners last year, the last sale of a minority stake in an NFL franchise was a December 2020 transaction among family members who own the Tennessee Titans.

The NFL declined further comment Wednesday on the prospective transaction. In March, NFL owners approved a resolution endorsing diversity in franchise ownership.

Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay has said in recent weeks that he and fellow NFL team owners should give serious consideration to voting to remove Snyder from ownership of the Commanders.

“I assume we’re going to get into more and more discussion on that,” Irsay said last month, speaking to reporters at an owners’ meeting in New York. “It’s a difficult situation. I believe that there’s merit to remove him as owner of the [Commanders]. I think it’s something that we have to review. We have to look at all the evidence, and we have to be thorough in going forward. But I think it’s something that has to be given serious consideration to.”

Irsay expanded on his comments in a phone interview Friday: “I’m not sure how that report’s going to come out. But what already has come out is extremely disturbing, and I disagree with the process. And I most likely disagree that we haven’t discussed something more severe such as him being removed as owner. As I said, it’s not something that I’m saying we should do. I’m saying it’s something that has to be given serious consideration.”

It would require a vote of at least three-quarters of the owners to remove Snyder from ownership. Multiple owners told The Post in September they believe serious consideration may be given to attempting to oust Snyder from the league’s ownership ranks, either by convincing him to sell his franchise or by voting to remove him.

“He needs to sell,” one of those owners said then. “Some of us need to go to him and tell him that he needs to sell.”

It was not immediately clear Wednesday whether any owners had urged Snyder to sell.

“I think there will be a movement,” the same owner said in September. “We need to get 24 votes.”

That owner said then that the NFL and owners “need to have it happen like the NBA just had,” in reference to Robert Sarver, the owner of the NBA’s Phoenix Suns and the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury. The NBA suspended Sarver for one year and fined him $10 million after an investigation found that he had used racial epithets and treated female employees by a different standard than their male counterparts, among other violations of that league’s policies. Sarver announced…