(Bloomberg Businessweek) -- It’s a good time to be a football fan in Washington, DC. In 2022 the team went through a much-needed rebrand: The franchise is now known as the Commanders after spending decades as the Redskins. They’re 7-2, which is the most wins they’ve had through nine games since 1996 and good enough for first place in their division. With the second selection in this year’s draft, the Commanders picked quarterback Jayden Daniels from Louisiana State University, who’s had one of the best NFL quarterback ratings and is a strong contender for rookie of the year.
The man at the center of this turnaround is Josh Harris, a co-founder of private equity firm Apollo Global Management Inc.—and an owner of the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers and the NHL’s New Jersey Devils and a general partner with the English Premier League’s Crystal Palace. Harris bought the Commanders last year from Daniel Snyder, who was, to put it mildly, extremely disliked. Under Snyder, the team had two playoff wins in 24 seasons, which is the same number of NFL-led investigations into the organization. (In 2022 the league hired Mary Jo White, former chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, to investigate Snyder for sexual harassment and financial misconduct. White substantiated the harassment claims and found about $11 million in revenue was improperly shielded from the NFL’s sharing arrangement. He was fined $60 million, but he denied any wrongdoing.)
“The Snyder era was 20-plus years of constant mediocrity,” says Eric Glazer, a Commanders fan whose family has had season tickets for 30 years. “It feels like Josh Harris owns the team for the fans as opposed to Dan Snyder owning the team for himself.”
So how has Harris managed this turnaround? And can other team owners learn anything from him?
“The Commanders had an existential effect on my childhood, so I have a deep affection for the franchise,” Harris says in a Zoom interview from his home in Miami. He grew up in Chevy Chase, Maryland, a 30-minute drive from the Redskins’ old home at Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) Memorial Stadium. “When you own a sports team, you’re a steward for a city, and my job is to help create memories. My job as an owner is to win championships. I’m all in in terms of hiring the best people on and off the field and trying to make this a player destination.”
Among the first things Harris did was to fire much of the coaching staff he’d inherited. Then he hired well, enlisting former Golden State Warriors general manager Bob Myers and ex-Minnesota Vikings GM Rick Spielman to help with the search for a head coach and his own GM. Also on the hiring committee: Commanders limited partners Magic Johnson, the NBA Hall of Famer; David Blitzer, Harris’ co-owner of the Philadelphia 76ers; and Mitchell Rales, the founder of conglomerate Danaher Corp.
The committee chose Adam Peters, who was the vice president for player personnel with the San Francisco 49ers, as GM. Peters helped bring in defensive specialist Dan Quinn to be head coach and Kliff Kingsbury, now the team’s offensive coordinator. Kingsbury had coached Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes in college and steered Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray to an offensive rookie of the year award in 2019. Daniels, his latest project, is “turning the team into a destination,” says Mike Tannenbaum, former New York Jets GM. “If you’re a skill player”—if your position involves touching the ball—“you want to play with someone like him, and Dan Quinn is going to be a force multiplier. Players will always want to play for him.”
In the offseason, Harris’ team also added veterans with postseason experience, such as Bobby Wagner, Zach Ertz and Austin Ekeler. (The Commanders traded for four-time Pro Bowl cornerback Marshon Lattimore earlier this week.) “Literally every acquisition has worked out for Josh Harris and the organization,” says Brett Tielman-Fenelus, a longtime Commanders fan. There’s been a little luck, too: Daniels is responsible for the season’s single most miraculous play, a Hail Mary touchdown pass to beat the Chicago Bears as time expired.
Harris’ ownership group paid a record $6.05 billion for the team. “I would have preferred to pay less,” he said on the David Rubenstein Show. “I joked that my credentials as a value investor were shattered.” An hour after doing so, he cost himself some more money when he called into Grant and Danny, a local sports talk radio show that was broadcasting from a brewery, and bought about 1,000 beers for fans celebrating his arrival.
The Commanders cost Harris 30% more than the previously most expensive team up for sale, the Denver Broncos, which sold in 2022 for $4.65 billion. The startling uptick in price caused other NFL owners to worry that franchises were becoming too big to sell. Three months after Harris bought the Commanders, the NFL began a process to let institutional investors buy into teams. (Harris isn’t on the committee that formed the policy. Prior to it, your money could come from private equity—like Harris’s—but your fund couldn’t invest in a team.) The league eventually approved four groups to buy 10% stakes in teams: Arctos Partners, Ares Management, Sixth Street Partners and a consortium that includes Ludis, Dynasty Equity, Blackstone, Carlyle Group and CVC Capital Partners. Already, Ares is in advanced talks to buy into the Miami Dolphins at an $8.1 billion valuation, and Arctos is in talks with the Buffalo Bills. “The NFL was really smart to do it, because it puts another club in their bag, and they’re unlocking the value,” Tannenbaum says. “You’re literally going to run out of people that can write a check unencumbered for $2.4 or $2.5 billion.”
Harris says the NFL will “continue to make [the rules] less restrictive. The NBA allows institutional investors to own up to 30%. I think it helps and will allow more capital to come into the industry.”
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The biggest issue Harris and the Commanders face is the need for a new place to play. The team’s lease at Northwest Stadium, in Landover, Maryland, which players consider to be one of the worst in football, doesn’t expire until 2027. “Northwest Stadium has been falling apart, and on top of that, the traffic is a disaster,” Glazer says. “It’s far away from everything, and it isn’t entirely metro-accessible.”
In 2022 a guardrail collapsed, which caused several fans to fall and almost hit Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts. A year before that, a pipe burst, drenching fans with stored rainwater. To help with some of the stadium’s infrastructure issues, Harris spent $80 million. Some of that money will also go toward improving the sound system and upgrading suites as well as food and beverage options.
Harris is eyeing 2030 for a new stadium on the old RFK site. The 63-year-old facility will be demolished soon. The District of Columbia controls the stadium, but the National Park Service owns the land. Congress is set to vote on a bill that would give the city control to build a new stadium and develop the real estate around it. That would likely make moving the Commanders there less of a headache, assuming the city and the team can reach a deal.
The RFK site is appealing because it’s near the heart of DC. The location is a 10-minute ride from Capitol Hill and a 15-minute drive from Nationals Park. “The stadium being in DC is of utmost priority—it’s the middle ground between Virginia and Maryland,” Tielman-Fenelus says. Glazer adds, “I think fans want something to be proud of—a place that has a great fan experience that will make people want to go to, or is so innovative tourists want to see it.”
Harris is in the process of hiring a new team president. According to someone familiar with his thinking, who didn’t want to be named discussing private conversations, he’s looking for someone who has built a stadium before.
“I think we could give fans an incredible experience in Maryland or Virginia, but I think politically, [DC] would be the place that would be most accepted by all three jurisdictions,” Harris says. In Maryland, he says, “we think we could do something in Prince George’s County. It’s one of the wealthier and racially diverse counties, and we think we could transform that county and really link together.”
Regardless of what happens with a stadium, Harris has figured out what the Commanders faithful need now—which, given the past few decades, seems like Page 1 of any playbook for an owner taking over a moribund franchise. “My message to fans,” Harris says, “is we appreciate you, and we’re going to continue to work really hard to make this a good experience.”
(Update adds audio.)
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