Dan Snyder's $6B Commanders Sale to Josh Harris, Magic Johnson Group Approved by NFL

The $6.05 billion purchase of the Washington Commanders by an ownership group led by Josh Harris and Magic Johnson was unanimously approved by NFL owners on Thursday.

The final price soars past the previous record for the most expensive NFL franchise, which was set when the Denver Broncos changed hands last August in a $4.65 billion transaction.

Commanders fans got the news they had wanted to hear for months when reports surfaced earlier this year of an agreement between Harris' group and Washington's current owners, Dan and Tanya Snyder.

However, the saga was far from over.

Since Harris and Johnson only struck a nonexclusive accord, the Snyders remained free to explore competing bids. ESPN's John Keim reported April 13 that Harris and Johnson were still in a "head-to-head race" with Canadian billionaire Steve Apostolopoulos.

Houston Rockets majority governor Tilman Fertitta backed out once the bidding passed $5.6 billion. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos didn't attempt to make a last-minute push, either, leaving Apostolopoulos as the only viable rival for Harris and Johnson.

On May 12, Harris and the Snyders announced they had entered into a purchase agreement, effectively eliminating the likelihood of any drama at the eleventh hour:

With that step completed, a few hurdles remained. The NFL's finance committee needed to sign off, and then an affirmative vote from three-fourths of the NFL's fellow owners was required as the last step.

There wasn't much reason to think Harris and Johnson's offer would encounter any roadblocks given their respective track records.

Harris already has significant ownership stakes in the NBA's Philadelphia 76ers and NHL's New Jersey Devils. And in addition to being an NBA legend, Johnson is a co-owner of multiple sports teams (MLB's Los Angeles Dodgers, MLS's Los Angeles FC and the WNBA's Los Angeles Sparks).

Thursday's news officially concludes one of the most disastrous ownership tenures in American sports over the last few decades.

The Commanders were one of the NFL's premier teams across the 1980s and into the early 1990s thanks to their success under head coach Joe Gibbs. With Snyder at the helm, they became mired in mediocrity.

Washington made six playoff appearances after he was approved as owner in 1999, and it cycled through numerous head coaches and starting quarterbacks in pursuit of any sort of consistency.

Fans grew more and more alienated due to the on-field product, a worsening in-stadium experience and self-inflicted public relations wounds. Few moments better symbolized Snyder's stewardship of the franchise than Sean Taylor's jersey retirement in 2021.

Off the field, Snyder oversaw a toxic atmosphere internally within the Commanders as well. In July 2021, the NFL fined Snyder $10 million after an investigation found a "highly unprofessional" environment within the organization's offices. He also ceded day-to-day team operations.

Shortly after the sale was announced on Thursday, the NFL fined Snyder $60 million stemming from Mary Jo White's investigation into the organization. According to the report's findings, the investigators "sustained both Tiffani Johnston's allegation of sexual harassment by Mr. Snyder and Jason Friedman's allegation of deliberate underreporting of NFL revenues by the Club to avoid its VTS sharing obligations."

By virtue of not being Dan Snyder, Harris and Johnson will already receive plenty of goodwill from the fanbase, and nobody will expect them to turn the Commanders into a Super Bowl contender overnight.

But the new ownership regime certainly has a lot of work ahead to undo all of the damage from the Snyder era.