Commanders price shows Walton-Penner group got ‘great value’ on Broncos

The long, 24-year nightmare of Washington football fans is over.

And the market for NFL teams is again reset, barely 10 months after the Walton-Penner group won the bidding for the Denver Broncos with a North American-pro-sports-record $4.65 billion purchase price.

Nationally, the big news will be that Daniel Snyder’s tumultuous, mistake-flooded, borderline-sociopathic reign will end. Snyder, who spent nearly a quarter-century driving a once-proud franchise into the ground, is expected to sell the Washington Commanders to a group led by Josh Harris, whose portfolio includes the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers and the NHL’s New Jersey Devils.

ESPN first reported the potential deal Thursday afternoon.

But in Broncos Country, the price is the story.

Harris was among the finalists for the Broncos last year. At the time, his group lost out to a precedent-setting offer. The Walton-Penner group paid more than double the sale price of the last NFL franchise to hit the market, the Carolina Panthers.

Now, with the Harris-led group paying $6.05 billion for the Commanders, that ceiling rose another $1.4 billion.

Granted, the Commanders have assets the Broncos do not. Washington is the No. 8 TV market in the United States; Denver is 16th. And while the Broncos have a wide swath of land in which they are the primary team, Washington sits in the densely-populated mid-Atlantic — although it shares a significant chunk of its territory with the Baltimore Ravens.

Prior to Snyder’s ownership, Washington was an East Coast version of the Broncos. Its season-ticket waiting list neared six figures. Every non-strike game for decades sold out. Its fan base was rabid, vast and passionate.

Snyder’s mismanagement destroyed that. It provided a cautionary tale to the rest of the NFL. Even the most loyal of fan bases can fade into apathy.

Today, Washington’s facilities are considered to be among the NFL’s worst. Its training facility received low grades in the recent NFLPA survey. Its stadium is — quite literally — falling apart.

The Commanders are the laboratory specimen of a distressed asset.

And they just fetched a record-shattering price.

Imagine what healthier franchises could yield.

The skyrocketing franchise values could spur some NFL owners to cash out. Franchise scarcity and increasing revenues will ensure this. But at the same time, to hold on to a club is to ensure access to a cash-generating machine. And what’s more, that operation continues expanding its reach, with a mission to expand its global footprint.

In 1999, the Washington franchise sold for a then-record $800 million. Now, that price won’t even buy a 20-percent stake.

Meanwhile, the Walton-Penner group can sit back and relax. Their asset — which has recent on-field underperformance but continues flourishing in myriad other ways — is in good shape. And its value continues rising.

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