No, nothing about the process of selling the Commanders will be easy.
Over the weekend, a fringe candidate to purchase the team gathered a little momentum, courtesy of a story published by WUSA9.
Brian Davis, a former Duke basketball player who spent two years in the NBA, reportedly has offered $7 billion for the team. His bid reportedly remains in play.
The Davis bid first surfaced last month, via a report from 106.7 The Fan in D.C. WUSA has confirmed the report, by obtaining documents reflecting the details of the bid that Davis made on March 21. The documents reportedly show that Davis will pay the first $1 billion within 24 hours, and another $6 billion within seven days.
It’s unclear why the Davis bid hasn’t been taken more seriously. The structure of the offer becomes critical, given the limits on borrowing and the minimum cash investment that the primary owner must make. The controlling owner must be able to pay for 30 percent of the team.
In this case, that’s $2.1 billion. Cash. The primary owner then must have sufficient remaining resources to operate the team.
So while it’s possible that Davis has cobbled together $7 billion in cash commitment and loans and everything else needed to come up with $7 billion to give to Snyder, the question is whether Davis himself can personally transfer $2.1 billion of his own money.
The other question is whether the league would revise its rules, given that Davis would be the first Black primary owner of any NFL team.
The fact that this bid hasn’t gotten more traction suggests that something is keeping it from being regarded as a viable alternative to the Josh Harris bid of only $6 billion. If Davis or anyone else can plunk down $7 billion with all structural rules satisfied, why wouldn’t the NFL want that?
Again, the only test to being an owner of an NFL team is having the cash to buy it. There’s no entrance exam. No good-citizen requirement (even if there should be). It’s all about offering the most money -- and being able to raise it in a way that meshes with the NFL’s rules.