Dan Snyder being pressured to sell team by minority shareholders, per report

The minority shareholders of the Washington Football Team would like to see Dan Snyder sell the team. But it doesn’t seem likely to happen.

On Thursday, Andrew Beaton and Cara Lombardo of The Wall Street Journal broke a story of importance to the Washington Football Team. Apparently, the team’s minority owners — Fred Smith, Dwight Schur, and Robert Rothman — are “pressuring” Washington owner Daniel Snyder to sell the franchise.

Smith, Schur, and Rothman own a combined 40 percent of the team. So on the surface, this would seem meaningful. But two key points render this opinion to be only noteworthy.

First, Snyder has no intention of selling the team. He has remained steadfast on this point and doesn’t seem likely to change his mind at any time.

Second, only NFL majority owners could force him to sell the team. And as ESPN’s John Keim outlined, it doesn’t seem likely that the group would decide to oust him.

So, it appears that the trio of minority owners are thinking wishfully here. And they may have an ulterior motive for trying to get rid of Snyder.

Smith, Schur, and Rothstein hired a firm to help facilitate the sale of their shares a month ago. While they could sell those, it’s worth noting that they would command a larger price for them if a controlling interest in the team was made available, as detailed by Beaton and Lombardo in The Journal’s story.

"Those same stakes would become more valuable if the entire team, which would likely be worth several billion dollars, were to be sold, the people said.The stakes have attracted interest from a variety of potential buyers, but Mr. Snyder has been reluctant to give any of them the option to eventually buy control despite the attempt to oust him, the people said. That has prompted some would-be buyers to walk away."

Per usual, it appears that this pressure is stemming from one thing: money. The minority shareholders want to make more money off selling their shares. The way to do that is to try to oust Snyder and open up the possibility of someone buying a majority stake in the team. But despite the pressure, it doesn’t look like he’s going anywhere.

We’ll keep an eye on this story moving forward. But for the time being, don’t expect Snyder to go anywhere unless he has a change of heart about owning the Washington Football Team.