The Seattle Seahawks have new ownership, and an insider is detailing a plan that will take effect for the team’s day-to-day operations. On July 11, the Estate of Paul G. Allen announced that the Khosla family has agreed to purchase the Seahawks.
Moreover, the Khosla family ownership is led by San Francisco 49ers limited partner Vinod Khosla.
As for the financial terms of the sale, Seth Wickersham and Adam Schefter of ESPN reported, citing multiple league sources with knowledge of the situation, that the selling price would be $9.612 billion, a record for an NFL franchise.
Now that it’s been a couple of days since the news broke, more details are emerging on how the Seahawks could operate under the Khosla family. During a July 13 appearance on “The Rich Eisen Show,” Wickersham said he believes Khosla’s son, Neal Khosla, will play a significant role in the team’s day-to-day operations.
“You never know how these things go, but I think it’s an ideal situation in the sense that he’s coming in, he’s buying a team that obviously is very well-run at the moment,” Wickersham said. “And his son Neal, I think, is going to be heavily involved in day-to-day operations with the team, and his son interned with the 49ers back in the day.
“Everybody always says, they always say, what makes a good owner? It’s easier to say what makes a bad owner. And I think that ownership being involved not in the minutiae of football, but in how football operations work, I think can be a really good thing. And that will be an interesting case study to see over the coming years how it works in Seattle.”
Seahawks Brass Have Positive Feeling About Khosla Family
Wickersham also made a July 13 appearance on Seattle Sports and noted that, in conversations with those involved in the process, the team’s brass have a good sense of where the Seahawks are headed with the Khosla family as owners.
“I think that over the past couple of weeks, the parties that have been interested have met with the estate and met with some of the team management,” Wickersham said. “Again, there wasn’t a ton of information coming out of there, but there was a sense that the team brass, at least in the conversations they had, had a really good feel for the Khosla family.
“It just seemed like it was trending that way as late last week entered into the weekend. Again, it’s the estate that makes the decision. It’s Jody who makes the decision about who they sell the team to.”
Khosla Family Receive Blunt Message
The biggest question facing Seattle is what type of ownership group the Seahawks are getting. That answer will become clearer over time, but Seattle Sports’ Brock Huard already has some advice for the Khosla family on maintaining the success the franchise has built over the past 15 years, including two Super Bowls.
“I’ll be honest, I don’t know much about this ownership group,” Huard said in a July 11 video. “We hardly know even the front-runner very well. So I guess my reaction is, please be like your predecessor.
“Please be like Paul and Jody and the Allen family and the trust. Be totally committed to this team and do whatever it takes to win.”
Seahawks Get Major Update After Khosla Family Sale Agreement