Reports of the Seattle Seahawks going up for sale after the Super Bowl quickly raised questions as to why the team’s ownership would sell the franchise now. The past 16 years have seen a run of success that includes three appearances in the NFL’s championship game, a Super Bowl title and 10 playoff berths for the team.
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However, the complexity of the situation soon became apparent when the Paul G. Allen Estate released a statement that disputed an ESPN report and said the Seahawks were not for sale.
So why would news of the team being put on the market be reported? Apparently, the NFL is putting pressure on the Allen estate to sell the Seahawks, according to the Wall Street Journal’s Andrew Beaton.
The Seahawks being owned by a trust following Paul Allen’s death in 2018 is the primary issue for the league. NFL rules mandate that an individual must be the controlling owner of a team, not a larger entity such as a trust, the WSJ reports.
Allen’s sister, Jody, is the executor of the trust. And Paul Allen’s stated intention was for the Seahawks — and the NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers, also owned by Allen — to eventually be sold with proceeds to be donated to charity.
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However, the understanding between the trust and the NFL was that the Seahawks would wait out a law established when Paul Allen bought the team in 1997. A condition of the sale was that the Seahawks would get a new stadium. But that law included a provision stating that if the team was sold again within a certain time frame, 10% of the sale would go to the state of Washington.
That sale condition expired in 2024, and the NFL subsequently began pressuring the trust to sell the franchise. Tensions apparently increased when the Allen estate agreed to sell the Trail Blazers for more than $4 billion to a group fronted by Carolina Hurricanes owner Tom Dundon.
Jody Allen resisted the league’s reminders of its ownership rules. As a result, the NFL reportedly fined the Seahawks $5 million for refusing to follow its directive. The league denied that such a fine had been issued, according to the WSJ.
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The NFL pressuring a team owner to sell a franchise is not unprecedented. Amid reports of financial misconduct by Daniel Snyder and sexual harassment in the team’s offices, the league reportedly forced the Washington Commanders to be sold to Josh Harris in 2023 for $6.05 billion. Five years earlier, Jerry Richardson was compelled to sell the Carolina Panthers amid allegations of racist behavior and workplace misconduct to David Tepper.
However, there is no indication in either of those instances that the NFL fined Snyder or Richardson before they sold their respective franchises.
The sale price of the Seahawks will likely exceed what Harris paid for the Commanders. An anonymous team executive speculated to ESPN that the franchise could be sold for $7 billion or more. Last fall, Sportico valued the Seahawks at $6.59 billion, ranking 14th among NFL teams.
