Whatever the struggles of Washington’s major professional sports teams — whether it was the Capitals’ inability to get past the second round of the playoffs, the Nationals’ regular collapse in the first round or the Wizards’ failure even to post a winning record — they and their owners always had some cover locally. Daniel Snyder owned the town’s NFL team. As long as that was the case, there was no way Ted Leonsis or the Lerner family could be the most reviled franchise steward around. Snyder held an unbreakable grip on that title.
So here comes Josh Harris into a dizzying time for professional sports in the District (and, by extension, Ashburn and Landover). The shell game of franchises, majority owners, minority partners, stadiums, networks, needs and wants is almost too confusing to follow, and we will get to the particulars. But if and when Harris’s purchase of the NFL’s Commanders is approved by the league’s owners — expected to be next month — the fallout should be this: Let’s scrutinize all the owners and their teams with a fresh eye because there’s no longer a “Well, at least he’s not Dan” couch to fall back on.
This is a time of unprecedented transition. Put aside the spring of 2018 and the Capitals’ run to the Stanley Cup or October 2019 and the Nationals’ romp to a World Series title. Has there been a more important month in Washington pro sports this century than June 2023? Think of what has happened.
The NFL scheduled a vote to approve Harris’s purchase of the Commanders from Snyder. The Nationals — finally and mercifully — received around $100 million in delayed revenue from their regional sports network, signaling that their Hundred Years’ War with the Baltimore Orioles may actually be capable of conclusion. Leonsis, whose Monumental Sports & Entertainment empire includes the Capitals, Wizards and WNBA’s Mystics — as well as his just rebranded regional sports network — just took steps to bring in the sovereign investment fund of Qatar as a minority partner, perhaps strengthening his bid to buy the Nationals, which has been on hold.
Not enough? There’s more. Both Monumental and the Nationals are squabbling with the District about who’s responsible for upkeep and upgrades to Capital One Arena and Nationals Park, respectively. Leonsis is doing his due diligence by chatting with Northern Virginia about relocating there, a move that some D.C. officials believe would be borderline catastrophic for downtown Washington, which is already struggling.
Throw in Mayor Muriel E. Bowser’s pursuit of the Commanders to return to the District after a three-decade absence, and this is a thick-as-peanut-butter plot.
There is so much dust to settle here. But before that, this much is true: Even Leonsis, who oversaw the Cup-winning Caps of ’18, and the Lerner family, who were the stewards when the Nats finally broke through in ’19, have some explaining to do. Snyder is about to be gone, and Harris will have an endless list of questions to answer about how he will run things differently in Ashburn. But for the others, we know the recent records, and the recent records stink.
Start with the Lerners. Are you in, or are you out? The Washington Post reported this year that Leonsis bid more than $2 billion for the Nationals in late 2022. Ted Lerner, the family patriarch, since has died. It’s time for his heirs to make a decision as to whether they want to reinvest in the baseball team — in dollars, sure, but also in energy and emotion — or move on from it.
If the conclusion is the latter, then let’s not haggle about whether their initial $450 million investment is worth, say, $2.2 billion or $2.3 billion. (Easy for me to casually dismiss an extra $100 million, I realize.) This was a business investment, absolutely, but it also was a civic one. Since it won the World Series, the team is enduring its fourth straight losing season and has played, cumulatively, at a 100-loss pace. A rebuild is underway. Seeing it to its fruition will require planning, foresight and vision, none of which can be fully formed with a “For Sale” sign hanging out front.
Which brings us to Leonsis. It would be hard for me to rail against the golfers who left the PGA Tour for the Saudi-backed LIV Golf series because of the human rights record of the government that is handing out the cash and then ignore that Leonsis’s potential infusion of funds from a Qatari government that, according to Amnesty International, similarly discriminates against women and members of the LGBTQ community, suppresses dissenting voices and routinely exploits migrant workers. The rules of MLB, the NHL and the NBA limit the percentage of a franchise a fund such as the Qatar Investment Authority can own, and it can’t hold sway in decision-making. Still, it will be interesting to hear Leonsis’s explanation about the hows and whys of this development.
Which is to say nothing of the hows and whys of his teams’ performance. Maybe the most important sporting development in the District this spring — non-Commanders sale division — was Leonsis’s hiring of Michael Winger to oversee the entirety of Monumental’s basketball operation. Winger’s first moves as they pertain to the Wizards: push the “detonate” button. Gone are Bradley Beal and Kristaps Porzingis, with Kyle Kuzma soon to follow. The season ahead will be painful, but for a franchise that has won four playoff series in four decades, this is progress.
Leonsis’s Capitals, meanwhile, responded to their first losing season in 16 years by hiring a first-time NHL head coach in Spencer Carbery. Carbery’s task: reverse a disturbing trend in which the team hasn’t won a playoff series since it won the Cup while ushering Alex Ovechkin past Wayne Gretzky on the career goals list and simultaneously developing young talent. That’s some plate-spinning-while-on-a-unicycle stuff right there.
There is no team in town on proven, sure footing. The unifying, shared language for any Washington sports fan once was despising Snyder. Now the entire lot has the common denominator of being in transition, be it in rosters or buildings or both. Ownership is ultimately responsible for those outcomes. That means you, Ted Leonsis, and you, Mark Lerner, and soon you, Josh Harris. We’re watching. Good luck.