Daniel Snyder’s day as an owner of a NFL franchise could be numbered.
As the Washington Commanders owner finds himself involved in yet another scandal, this time the subject of a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Virginia attorney general investigation into potentially fraudulent book-keeping, his fellow owners are reportedly at their breaking point.
“We are counting votes,” one team owner told Jarrett Bell of USA Today, implying that the owners were considered an ouster of Snyder’s ownership, which would require 24 votes to force a sale of the organization.
Among the accusations against Snyder and the organization in this latest investigation is that he had two separate accounting systems, with the potential goal of keeping some of the team’s earnings out of the NFL’s revenue-sharing system.
“If that happened, I think that’s the nail in the coffin,” one team owner said of Snyder’s ownership.
“For the first time, there’s been chatter,” another team owner told Bell regarding a potential ouster. “We should really think about doing something if they find something there.”
This comes in the wake of a $10 million fine from the NFL in July after its investigation into allegations of a toxic workplace environment within the organization.
That punishment—given the 150 people interviewed and detailed instances of sexual harassment, bullying and intimidation, especially toward female employees—was considered incredibly light, even within NFL ownership circles.
“There’s a feeling, a sense of disappointment amongst the owners that I talk to—I don’t talk to them all, but owners who come to the meetings and are active—that he wasn’t suspended,” one team owner told Bell. “Disappointment that [commissioner Roger Goodell] did not act stronger.”
In February 2021, Washington settled out of court with a number of former cheerleaders who said that executive staffers had lewd videos made of outtakes from swimsuit calendar photoshoots in 2008 and 2010, with some of those outtakes including nudity.
And for years, the organization clung to its offensive nickname before public pressure and pressure from sponsors led to the team changing its name in 2020, initially going with Washington Football Team before transitioning to Commanders.
Suffice to say, Snyder and his organization have remained in the headlines for all the wrong reasons in the past few years. He’s given up day-to-day control of the organization to his wife, Tanya.
But his fellow owners appear to be running low on patience.
“There’s growing frustration about the Washington situation and not over one issue, but over how much smoke there is,” one owner told Bell. “I think everybody’s getting tired of it.”
“There are some owners who believe the league will be better off with a different owner in Washington,” another owner added.
