Snyder plays the ‘Skins game to perfection

By BRUCE LOWITT

Daniel Snyder thanked the National Football League for what he called “their payoff” in his sale of the Washington Commanders and its willingness “to overlook so much of the crap I pulled while I still owned that godawful team.”

Snyder, who bought the franchise, then known as the Washington Redskins, for $800-million in May 1999 following the death of previous owner Jack Kent Cooke, sold the team for $6.05-billion moments before the league announced it had fined him $60-million for improprieties in his business dealings and sexual harassment in the workplace.

“I’m not supposed to tell anyone this but, what the hell, I’m not one of them anymore,” Snyder said. “What are they going to do, kill the sale? They’ve been trying to get rid of me for years. So a year or so ago they started talking about fining me, then switched to threatening to take away draft picks and vetoing any trades and swearing that our games would never be on national TV and that we’d have the worst schedule, shit like that.

“I finally told (NFL Commissioner Roger) Goodell I’d get out of their hair on two conditions – that he’d find a buyer willing to spend the most ever to buy a pro sports franchise in North America and that he’d forget all those threats and crap and just fine me less than one percent of the sale price,” Snyder said. “Y’know, just so he could save face. Well, $60-million is .0082645 percent less than $6.05-billion. So thank you, Roger. You have a very nice face, one worth saving.”

Goodell would neither confirm nor deny Snyder’s allegations, saying only: “We’re extremely happy that Josh Harris and his group, which incidentally includes NBA legend Magic Johnson, was willing to step up and take over a franchise whose formerly racist name was defended by its asshole owner who spent 24 seasons running the team into the ground.”

“I only hope that they can find their way to come up with a better name for it,” said Goodell, who, like Harris, was an enthusiastic fan of the Redskins growing up in the nation’s capital. “I mean, Commanders? Really? You want to celebrate D.C.? How about, I don’t know, Millionaires? Billionaires? Justices? Lobbyists? Candidates? Felons? Autocrats? Wing Nuts?”

Former U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White told the owners that her 17-month investigation into the Commanders confirmed that Snyder sexually harassed a former team employee, that under Snyder’s direction the team intentionally withheld about $11-million in revenue required to be shared with other NFL franchises, that the team sold recycled hot dogs, North Korean hamburgers and diluted beer in Fedex Field, that the Command Force cheerleaders were required to “fraternize” with fans in the luxury suites after home games and that police, security staff and medical personnel had to pay to get into the stadium to do their jobs.

According to White, one former employee said the team’s financial policies were to “maximize revenue, break the rules if you need to” and “do as much as you can, but don’t get caught.”

A source within NFL headquarters, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the league buried the report. And Snyder, in a statement, denied all of the former employee’s quotes “except for that last part.”