The Seattle Seahawks have been officially for sale for a day, but the speculation about who could be the next owner of the team has been in high gear for years. National media personalities are now playing catch-up.
“The Rich Eisen Show” on ESPN / Disney+ weighed in Thursday (above) with a flurry of Seattle-connected names who could step in to buy the NFL franchise — some serious and some not so much.
Eisen said that the late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen bought the team for about $140 million and change in 1997, and that while he’s not an investor, Eisen knows the 2026 price tag “is gonna be more than that.”
The show’s mock consulting firm — RES Consulting — then started throwing out names: actors Rainn Wilson, Adam Ray, Joel McHale and Jeffrey Dean Morgan; rockers Eddie Vedder and Jerry Cantrell; hip-hop stars Sir Mix-a-Lot and Macklemore; Kraken co-owner and Hollywood producer Jerry Bruckheimer; and even Bill Nye the Science Guy.
But Eisen listed Bellevue, Wash.-based ex-Microsoft CEO and Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer as perhaps the most legitimate billionaire name on their speculative list. Ballmer, with a net worth of $141 billion, could buy the whole NFL, said one of the show’s sidekicks.
“He could be the guy at the end of the day,” Eisen said.
There’s a belief in league circles that Jeff Bezos will not be in play for the team, says Mike Florio of NBC’s “Pro Football Talk,” reiterating that while the Amazon founder lived in Seattle for 30 years, he’s now an East Coast guy down in Miami.
“We’ll see, because obviously if he wants it he’s gonna get it,” Florio said of Bezos in a nod to his $231 billion net worth.
The bigger possibility, according to Florio, is that there’s a tech billionaire out there “that we don’t know about, who’s gonna show up with the biggest bag of money.”
Florio said the team’s valuation, whether it’s $6 billion, $7 billion, $11 billion or more, doesn’t matter. It’s about what someone is willing to pay to be part of the exclusive NFL owners club.
“I’ll be surprised if it’s less than 9 [billion], I won’t be surprised if it’s more than 10,” he said.
A concern for Seahawks fans, Florio says, is that a new owner comes in, and despite the turnkey and move-in ready appearance of the championship team, that owner will want to put his or her stamp on things.
“If I’m a Seahawks fan I want someone who just stays out of the way,” Florio said, “and gives the team all the resources that it needs.”
Related:
- Seattle Seahawks are for sale as Paul Allen estate seeks buyer shortly after Super Bowl win
- Podcast: Debating who could emerge as potential buyers for the Seahawks
- When the Seattle Seahawks sell, will any tech execs step up for the 12s?
- Want to own a piece of the Seahawks? Seattle startup presents its private equity idea to fans
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