Not long after the Seattle Seahawks won the Super Bowl for the second time in franchise history, the franchise was finally put up for sale. Who will be the next Seahawks owner? It could be a big tech billionaire.
Front Office Sports reported on Thursday that of the four interested majority buyers (at least up to this point), two of them are Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and soon-to-be former Apple CEO Tim Cook.
At least four potential majority buyers have expressed interest, including two very familiar names:
tech titans Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg and Apple’s Tim Cook, who recently announced he will step down as CEO and become EVP of the company’s board of directors.
Five sources familiar with the matter tell Front Office Sports they’ve heard Zuckerberg is considering a bid, while four say Cook is separately weighing an offer. The identities of the other two potential bidders were not clear, nor was it known whether any formal offers had been made.
Representatives for Allen & Co., the bank running the sale process for the Seahawks, as well as the seller, the Paul G. Allen estate, declined to comment. Representatives for Meta and Apple did not immediately respond to requests for comment, and direct representatives for Zuckerberg and Cook could not immediately be reached.
Before you head over to Facebook on your iPhone app to start forming strong opinions about this news, Puck’s Dylan Byers has shot down the FOS report.
Based on net worth, Tim Cook’s estimated $2.9 billion would presumably mean he’d have to be part of a bigger ownership group, whereas Zuckerberg’s net worth is reportedly north of $200 billion. Neither man has ever owned a professional sports franchise, although Zuckerberg has close ties to the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and has an ongoing sponsorship deal with the mixed martial arts giant. Cook is an Auburn alum who’s a big fan of Tigers football, but any inkling of him being part of an NFL ownership group I’m pretty sure hasn’t materialized until now.
Like it or not, one of the looming stories throughout this Seahawks offseason and likely into the upcoming season will be who will succeed the Allen family as team owners.
