Last Saturday, the Paul G. Allen Estate announced that the Seahawks will be sold (pending approval) to a group led by venture capitalist Vinod Khosla.
The bidding between the two finalists was extremely close.
Per a source with knowledge of the situation, the process eventually consisted of Khosla’s group and the group led by Celtics limited partner Aditya Mittal going back and forth, like an auction. One side would one-up the other, and the other would raise the stakes higher.
The process ended with Khosla’s group bidding $9.612 billion.
There was another factor that helped the bid from Khosla’s group win the competition. The source says that Khosla’s plan to make his wife, Neeru, the controlling owner appealed to Jody Allen, the sister of Paul Allen who has been running the team following his passing in 2018.
We posed the question to a spokesperson for the Paul G. Allen Estate regarding whether the decision to delegate the main ownership role to Neeru Khosla was a factor in the outcome of the process. In response, the spokesperson had “nothing to share beyond the statement we released last week about reaching a sale agreement with the Khosla family.”
Every team must identify a single controlling owner who holds the power to cast any and all votes on league matters. Every year, each controlling owner must identify the person who would replace the controlling owner in the event of death or incapacitation.
It’s an important aspect of NFL ownership. The league wants to know, with specificity, who will have the power to cast votes on the various issues that are presented to the full membership at the four quarterly meetings, and at any special meetings.
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