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Seems to be a pretty simple process. Most of us do it all the time. Someone has something to sell. Someone wants to buy it. They agree on a price, make the transaction and move on. Alas, as Las Vegas Raiders news shows this week, it is not so simple when it comes to NFL franchises, as Tom Brady is learning.
This week’s two-day NFL owners meeting in Texas—the league dubs it the “Special Meeting”—came and went and while the NFL did take up several items, including expanding the international slate of games and playing one in Brazil, making Brady a part owner of the Raiders was not one.
There is “hope” that there could be a deal coming, but the freezing out of Brady by the league’s other owners remains in place for now.
That is according to NFL reporter Mark Maske of the Washington Post.
“The owners are still not expected to vote today on Tom Brady’s proposed deal to become a part-owner of the Raiders. There remains hope that deal could be worked out and approved in the future,” Maske wrote on Twitter/X.
Is Mark Davis Offering Too Much of a Discount?
The major stumbling block on a sale of a stake in the Raiders to Tom Brady is the price that owner Mark Davis is asking Brady to pay. Because other NFL owners want to maintain the high value of their franchises, they do not want shares in other teams sold at steep discounts. And because NFL owners must vote to approve stake sales by a three-fourths margin, they can continue to swat away the Raiders-Brady marriage.
In October, The Post reported the Raiders news that Brady is buying a stake of somewhere between 5-10%, and that Davis was willing to do so at a discount of, “as much as approximately 70%.” Brady already has purchased a share of the WNBA team that Davis owns, the Las Vegas Aces.
“The NFL’s approval process for Tom Brady’s proposed deal to purchase a minority ownership stake in the Las Vegas Raiders has stalled, at least in part because of concerns by the league’s finance committee about the discounted price Raiders principal owner Mark Davis is offering Brady, according to three people familiar with the deliberations over the prospective transaction,” the Post reported.
“While there is support among some league leaders and the finance committee for Davis’s effort to sell a portion of the Raiders to Brady, the deal would be unlikely to be ratified at the proposed price, one of those people said.”
Tom Brady Would Be Big Raiders News
Even without an official share in the team, it stands to reason that Tom Brady’s close relationship with Mark Davis will mean that he has some influence over how the team will proceed in the offseason, with so much yet to be determined. And considering Brady’s depth of knowledge in the game, that has to count as good Raiders news.
The Raiders have an interim general manager, Champ Kelly, and an interim coach, Antonio Pierce, and could decide to look elsewhere. If they go for an outside hire, would it be someone from Brady’s Patriots past? He has a frosty relationship with Bill Belichick, and the Raiders did not exactly enjoy the Josh McDaniels experience.
How about Brady’s past as a Michigan quarterback? He has been a supporter of Jim Harbaugh with the Wolverines, and was outspoken when Harbaugh was suspended in a spying scandal earlier this year.
Or maybe Brady has seen enough promise in the status quo to advise Davis to stay the course.
Either way, Tom Brady figures to have some influence. It’s just a matter of whether he is an official part-owner yet or not.
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