Dan Snyder will soon no longer own the Washington Commanders, but his over a decade of bad behavior isn’t the reason why his reign of terror is coming to an end.
Snyder has long blamed others for his downfall. Team president Bruce Allen was a scapegoat. The media – both national and local – was against him. He was falsely accused by employees and ex-employees. All so unfair . . .
But fellow NFL owners will finally deliver relief on July 20; ending a two-year odyssey to relieve themselves of Snyder by approving the team’s sale to the group led by Josh Harris. Finally, owners will be done with Snyder long after Commanders fans gave up on him.
Still, the reason for Snyder’s exit isn’t what many believe. It has nothing to do with the team’s poor treatment of women and a toxic workplace culture with multiple credible accusations of sexual harassment, though that led to a Congressional investigation and two NFL probes. Instead, the House investigation produced massive political poison that sent lawmakers scurrying from Snyder’s stadium plan. And that is what proved to be the backbreaker.
NFL owners are finally getting rid of Snyder because he was no longer making them big money like his predecessor Jack Kent Cooke. Snyder’s gate receipts at half-empty FedEx Field were shared with visiting teams and not near the old paydays of 91,000 fans. Indeed, many owners seeing a majority of visiting fans in Landover felt they should have received the home share of ticket sales.
When any decision is to be made by the NFL, the bottom line that matters most is the bottom line.
That Snyder couldn’t get a new stadium built was the final straw. Not Snyder’s aggressive scare tactics of a "Blackmail PowerPoint" to expose poor behavior by other NFL owners and execs as detailed in a recent ESPN report. The NFL always survives bad publicity.
Indeed, Snyder seemed capable of surviving the team’s sexual misconduct allegations with short double-secret probation by a league scuttling its own investigation without even producing a written report. The NFL complied a 243-page “Deflategate” report on improper football air inflation to suspend New England quarterback Tom Brady, but zero pages on alleged sexual misconduct.
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Politicians ran scared after the House investigation, though. When Virginia lawmakers talked of a $1 billion stadium contribution, citizens booed them down. Soon, the deal was $300 million, then suddenly worthless and tabled to another time. District leaders flat-out said they wouldn’t work with Snyder. Maryland sat on its $300 million offer to revive the area surrounding the stadium.
That’s when NFL owners knew they needed to rid themselves of Snyder. And, they have been proven right. Already, Maryland, Virginia and District leaders are talking of a new stadium with incoming owners.
That’s why Snyder will spend the rest of his life sailing the Mediterranean aboard his yacht with $6.05 billion. But then, exile is often a golden parachute. Napoleon kept his title as emperor of France and 600-soldier guard during his time in Elba. Even a second exile later saw Napoleon pass the time writing his memoirs versus the guillotine.
Snyder will surely spend his afternoons dictating his version of history. Parties aboard the yacht will include some tall tales – that none of this was his fault, for sure.
History will judge Snyder poorly just as it has predecessor George Preston Marshall, whose statue outside RFK Stadium was torn down in 2020 nearly 40 years after he finally signed Black players.
No previous Redskins owner ever lost control of the team. Snyder may have decades to retell his tale until newcomers might believe some of it. Surely, Snyder already believes the spin.
But the spin is really this – Snyder didn’t make his league partners even richer. And, that’s an unforgivable sin in the NFL.
Follow Rick Snider on Twitter: @Snide_Remarks
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