Founder and current CEO of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, is considering selling the far-left newspaper Washington Post in a bid to buy the NFL’s Washington Commanders, according to New York Post.
It can be recalled that the Washington Post announced that it had lost 500,000 subscribers since Joe Biden took office. In 2021, The Washington Post had 3 million subscribers – that number dropped to 2.5 million in 2022.
WaPo publisher Fred Ryan told employees at a companywide meeting that layoffs would continue early this year, after eliminating its Sunday magazine and cutting ten staffers in the process last year.
The WaPo was purchased by the billionaire for $250 million in 2013, but a new report says Bezos is “looking to clear the way” to buy the Commanders from embattled owner Dan Snyder.
“Chatter is growing that Amazon’s billionaire founder is looking to clear the way for a purchase of the Washington Commanders by selling the Washington Post,” the Post reported. “The problem for Bezos reportedly is that the Commanders’ embattled owner, Dan Snyder, is still sore over the storied newspaper’s series of exposes alleging a toxic management culture at the team.”
The outlet added that some even speculate that Snyder believes Bezos actively pushed the paper’s critical coverage in 2020 in an effort to coerce Snyder into selling him the team.
According to a source with knowledge of the issue, Bezos assured the paper’s upper management in private meetings that he had no intention of selling.
Although the billionaire has stated that there are no plans to sell the publication, the New York Post quoted an unnamed source saying, “I think Bezos’ people could go to Dan and say as a gesture of goodwill, ‘We are selling the paper.’
“I think that would go a long way with Dan.”
Daily Mail reported, on November 2, Snyder and his wife and co-CEO Tanya stated that they had recruited Bank of America Securities to explore prospective transactions. They did not say whether or not they were trying to sell the entire team.
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Meanwhile, Front Office Sports reported last Tuesday that Bank of America, hired by Snyder to auction the Commanders, “continues to court Bezos — even if there are indications that Snyder doesn’t want to sell” to the Amazon founder.
Bezos has not hired an investment banker to sell the Washington Post, nor has he made it perfectly clear it is actually for sale, the source added. Neither source is close to former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who, according to a Dec. 23 Axios report, is interested in buying either the Wall Street Journal or Washington Post.
A spokesperson for Bezos said the Washington Post is not for sale. A spokesperson for the Journal — the owner of which, News Corp., also owns the New York Post — said the paper is not for sale.
Last week, reports surfaced that the Commanders have taken first-round bids from prospective acquirers and that Bezos — who reportedly has been in talks with Jay-Z to team up for a buyout — wasn’t among them.
Bezos has been tight-lipped on the subject of the Commanders, apart from a November CNN interview in which he said football is his “favorite sport” and his girlfriend Lauren Sanchez chimed in, “I do like football — I’m just going to throw that out there.”
Sports journalists, meanwhile, have been happy to weigh in on behalf of Dan Snyder — whose disposition toward Bezos is decidedly less enthusiastic, according to reports.
“Not only was I told Bezos didn’t submit a bid, I’ve had people tell me the Snyder family has absolutely no interest in selling to Bezos,” JP Finlay, who covers the Commanders for NBC Sports, tweeted last weekend. That was in response to reports that the highest first-round bid came in at $6.3 billion — short of the $7 billion-plus that Snyder reportedly is seeking.