It’s a given that a sale of the Commanders will be good for business, given the general attitudes toward current owner Daniel Snyder. In fact, the mere talk of a sale has gotten the cash register ca-chinging.
Appearing on CNBC’s Last Call (via Sports Business Journal), Commanders president Jason Wright explained that a change in ownership will spark a shift in revenue generation.
“This is an historic franchise with a 90-year history of people that love this team and we’ve already seen some of that business momentum come back,” Wright said. He added that, once the “sale process was announced last November, we sold what we would normally sell in a full season in annual suites, we made that in a week.”
It’s not a surprise. Lapsed fans of the team look forward to re-embracing the Commanders.
“There’s anticipation of this franchise returning to what it once was and people are willing to jump back into business with us, whether that’s sponsors, suite holders and others, and we’ve now built an organization that can absorb that momentum,” Wright said.
Once a sale happens, the bigger play will be finding a new stadium. Wright said that “one of the great opportunities we have with whoever’s leading the organization in a few months here is the opportunity to lead a 30-year economic development project and that’s really the way we see it.”
For Wright, there’s a question of whether he’ll still be the president of the team as those moves are made. New ownership might want to make a clean break from all ties to Snyder. The momentum the organization has built during the past few months, after Snyder basically checked out, could persuade the new owner to let things continue to play out.
