Owner Daniel Snyder coming to an agreement to buy out the franchise’s three minority owners ended nearly a year of private and public squabbling between the Washington Football Team’s partners.
News broke Wednesday morning Snyder would pay around $900 million for the shares owned by Frederick W. Smith (10 percent), Dwight Schar (15 percent), and Robert Rothman (15 percent). Snyder and his family will now take complete control of the franchise after the NFL finance committee approved a $450 million debt waiver to allow him to fund the purchase.
For Washington fans, one big question jumped to mind: Does this mean after the NFL reviews the findings of an independent investigation by attorney Beth Wilkinson into Snyder and the team’s workplace culture, the league will not force Snyder to sell the team?
Before offering a possible answer to that question, some backstory: Snyder has been locked in a months-long dispute with the three minority owners that resulted in numerous lawsuits in federal court.
The dispute has involved the minority owners’ desire to sell their shares, Snyder allegedly blocking them, Snyder allegedly withholding payments, and the alleged leaking of information intended to damage Snyder’s reputation.
Simultaneously, beginning in July 2020, the WFT has been the focus of several damaging reports about the franchise tolerating workplace sexual harassment against team employees, female media members, and cheerleaders. Some reports have implicated Snyder directly, including one which involved a $1.6 million settlement. (Snyder has pushed back on the reporting and denied any involvement.)
Snyder initiated an investigation of the team’s culture by Wilkinson before the NFL announced they were taking over the investigation in late September. Before the Super Bowl in early February, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said Wilkinson was "nearing the completion" of her investigation. And he would share the report's findings with Washington and "others," but did not say the report's findings would be made public.
In late February, seventeen named and three unnamed former team employees signed an open letter demanding transparency, writing: “Each of us endured and/or witnessed a sexually hostile work environment, bullying, and other mistreatment carried out or condoned by owner Daniel Snyder and other executives of the WFT.”
In the first week of March, 106.7 The Fan's The Sports Junkies reported what they said were options Wilkinson may present to the NFL, with one option being to "force the owner to divest his ownership of the team" and another to "suspend the owner for a significant period."
Those events bring us to this week’s news of the NFL’s approval of a debt waiver so Snyder can buy out his minority partners. So, what does this mean for the NFL’s investigation?
The league has said the investigation is still ongoing and the commissioner has yet to review the findings.
A league spokesman told The Washington Post the NFL’s investigation and the league’s decision to grant Snyder the debt waiver are “two separate matters.”
The New York Times framed this week’s news as a win-win for Snyder: He was removing a thorn in his side in the form of three minority owners while gaining total control over the franchise “while he pays a fine for executives’ misconduct.”
The Times reported Goodell is expected to fine Snyder based on Wilkinson’s report, citing an unnamed source familiar with the league’s deliberations. But a second source told The Times it is possible the Washington owner could still face additional penalties or outside oversight of the franchise.
All signs point to the league declining to force Snyder out. NFL reporter Albert Breer tweeted the “people who thought Snyder would be pushed out by his peers miss a pretty important element of all this...Most owners want no part of a precedent being set where guys are forced to sell teams.”
While Carolina owner Jerry Richardson sold his team after an NFL investigation confirmed the Panthers owner had for years sexually harassed employees and made racist comments, Breer notes Richardson did so voluntarily.
After the league reviewed the findings of the investigation by former U.S. attorney Mary Jo White, the NFL’s punishment was to fine Richardson $2.75 million. A month before the fine was announced, Richardson agreed to sell the team to David Tepper for $2.2 billion. The league never made the report public.
On Thursday, the Time’s Up Foundation released a statement demanding transparency and accountability from the NFL before they approved the sale.
“No deal should happen until the full report of the investigation into the WFT is released to the public,” Time's Up president Tina Tchen wrote, via The Post. “The NFL, including all of the owners who will be voting to give Snyder special treatment, cannot turn a blind eye to those who had the courage to come forward to detail decades of pervasive harassment and abuse. There cannot be accountability without transparency.”
There is the possibility Snyder decides, like Richardson, to voluntarily sell the team after his family gains 100 percent control. But it appears with Richardson as a precedent, the Wilkinson report will likely never be made public and Snyder will be fined and the league will be content with allowing him to remain in charge.
While the league claims these are "two separate matters," the quiet conclusion of one of Snyder's problems, likely precedes the quiet conclusion of the other.
And the result appears to be Snyder, in total control of the team he first bought in 1999, fashioning the Washington Football Team's rebuilding and rebranding in his image.
Follow @BenKrimmel for the latest.
Tyler Dunne, who broke the story on Dan Snyder, spoke with Kevin Sheehan, listen to their conversation here:
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