Sources: Seahawks will go up for sale after Super Bowl LX

The Seattle Seahawks will be put up for sale after Super Bowl LX, league sources and owners close to the deal told ESPN, ending years of questions about when the team would seek a new owner following the 2018 death of former owner Paul G. Allen.

Discussions about the sale have taken place at the ownership and league level for at least the last week, the sources said.

The NBA’s Seahawks and Portland Trail Blazers have been under Allen’s estate since the former Microsoft owner and co-founder died in 2018 from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. His sister, Jody Allen, controlled the teams as executor of the trust, with instructions from her brother to eventually sell both and donate the profits to charity.

An NFL spokesperson declined to comment. In a statement, a spokesperson for the Paul G. Allen estate said the organization does not comment on rumors or speculation and that “the team is not for sale.”

“We have already said that this will change at some point depending on Paul’s wishes, but I have no news to share,” the spokesperson said. “Our goal right now is to win the Super Bowl and complete the sale of the Portland Trail Blazers in the coming months.”

The Seahawks are now past the date when a sale would have triggered 10 percent profit sharing with Washington State.

If the Seahawks are put up for sale, it will be the first time in the Super Bowl era that an entire team that appeared in the championship game will be put on the market shortly afterward. In February 1991, Preston Robert Tisch bought 50% of the champion New York Giants.

The Seahawks will face the New England Patriots on February 8 in Santa Clara, California.

Paul Allen agreed to purchase the Seahawks from Ken Behring in 1996, with the deal becoming official in 1997. The deal saved the team from a possible move to Southern California. If resold, the franchise could set a record for the sale price of an NFL team after a Super Bowl appearance and possibly a championship.

The Seahawks have made the playoffs in seven of the last ten years. They are based at the legendary Lumen Field, which opposing players say is one of the toughest stadiums to play in and which will receive nearly $20 million in renovations ahead of the 2026 World Cup. The franchise also boasts one of the most highly regarded general manager-head coach combinations in the league in John Schneider and Mike Macdonald.

Sports team valuations have soared in recent years. Sportico values ​​the Seahawks at $6.59 billion, the 14th highest in the league, according to its rankings. The most recent NFL team to sell was the Washington Commanders, which a group led by Josh Harris purchased in 2023 for a record $6.05 billion. The NBA’s Los Angeles Lakers sold a majority stake in the team for a valuation of $10 billion last June.

A team executive told ESPN the Seahawks could fetch between $7 billion and $8 billion.

The Blazers are in the process of being sold to an investor group led by Tom Dundon, who has agreed to buy the team for more than $4 billion. Dundon owns the NHL’s Carolina Hurricanes.

Jody Allen, who raised the 12 flag before the NFC championship game in honor of her brother, has generally not granted interview requests while leading the team, and her first comments came on stage at Lumen Field last Sunday as the Seahawks received the NFC championship trophy: “I’m incredibly proud to be here today and to accept this on behalf of all the 12 here, all the 12 across the country and all 12 across the world.”

She released a statement on the ownership situation in July 2022, saying that while neither the Blazers nor the Seahawks were for sale at the time, they eventually would be. This was after Nike founder Phil Knight and Los Angeles Dodgers minority owner Alan Smolinisky made an unsolicited offer to buy the Blazers for more than $2 billion.

In his 2022 statement, Allen said the teams would ultimately be sold “given Paul’s plans to devote the vast majority of his wealth to philanthropy, but estates of this size and complexity can take 10 to 20 years to liquidate.” There is no predetermined timetable for the sale of teams.

“In the meantime, my priority – and that of our teams – is to win.”

The biggest decision Allen has made since taking control of the team was leaving legendary coach Pete Carroll after the 2023 season, which elevated Schneider to the team’s primary decision-maker. Schneider hired Macdonald, who led the Seahawks to 10- and 14-win regular seasons and now the fourth Super Bowl appearance in franchise history.

“What strikes me about Jody is her enthusiasm for where she wanted our team and our franchise to be as a vision for the Seattle Seahawks,” Macdonald said Friday during the team’s press briefing. “It was during our interview process. Honestly, that’s really where I was like, ‘OK, this is something I really care about and I feel like I could help create this.’ So, I think, everything was done with that in mind. It’s very clear what kind of team she wants and she’s been incredibly supportive. … She was great.”