Why Jeff Bezos buying the Seattle Seahawks is a real possibility

The Washington Commanders needed to be sold as the franchise appeared to be a toxic environment for its employees both on the field and off. While no sale is official yet of the Washington football team, it appears to be only a matter of (short) time before the team has a different owner than Dan and Tanya Snyder. But one person who chose against bidding for the Commanders was Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Maybe he is wanting to buy the Seattle Seahawks instead.

The Seahawks have to be sold at some point. Late-owner Paul Allen formed a trust, which his sister, Jody, is now the Trustee of, that decreed the sale of both the Seattle football team and the NBA's Portland Trailblazers after his death. There was no set timeline for the sale of each team, only that they must be sold for philanthropic reasons. Eventually, the Seahawks will be sold and a new owner will be running the team.

And it makes sense for Bezos to make a bid on the team and for him to win that bid. No one wanting to own a football team has more money than Bezos. He could offer the Trust, and therefore Jody Allen, billions of dollars to buy the team. Jody Allen appears to have a real interest in the team and wants it to be run well and win football games, but owning a football team is also a business. If someone offers a person $6 billion or more to buy a team that has to eventually be sold, why would that person - Jody Allen in this case - not seriously think about selling?

Jeff Bezos has more than enough money to buy the Seahawks

It's funny to think about but Bezos offering a current NFL ownership group $6 billion to buy a team would equate to him offering only 2.4 percent of his reported total wealth of $250 billion. Heck, if I am Allen and she actually wants to sell, just have Bezos spend $8 billion. That would be only 3.2 percent of his entire wealth.

But Bezos also knows enough to know that owning an NFL team doesn't mean losing money. Even if Bezos spends $8 billion, he is going to make money long term in the deal. NFL teams make a lot of money so every owner is rewarded with their ownership. Bezos might want to own a football team because it's a football team, but it's also simply a smart business move.

It is unlikely that the Seahawks are sold prior to May 2024. That's because there is a clause called Referendum 48 that was passed in 1997 that funded what is now called Lumen Field. It stipulates that if Paul Allen or his estate (or trust, in this case) become minority owners before 25 years have gone by then 10 percent of the sale of the team would go back to the city of Seattle (or more specifically, the Public Stadium Authority).

May 2, 2024, marks the end of those 25 years so if Jody Allen and the trust sell the team on May 2, 2024, or after, the trust will make all the money, and the city of Seattle will not get their 10 percent. This means the team could officially be sold in a little over a year. Maybe Bezos, who founded Amazon in a rented garage in Bellevue, Washington in 1994 and knows the Seattle area well, is biding his time until the Seahawks are ready to be sold. He has the money - easily - to buy the team and would be the wealthiest owner, by far, in the NFL.

Of course, the question would be how the organization would be run differently. It would appear that currently, the Seahawks are an employee-friendly workplace. Bezos has somewhat of a negative reputation for how employees are treated. Let's just hope if that last part is actually fact, and he buys the team and the employees are treated differently than they currently are, that 12s, while still rooting for the team on the field, can find a way to still be proud of the entire organization.