The Seahawks Just Sold for $9.6 Billion. What Does That Mean for the Rest of the NFL?
September 30th 2026
The Seattle Seahawks were recently sold to the Khosla family for $9.6 billion, setting a new record for the largest NFL franchise sale. This number is even more surprising when compared with the previous record. Back in 2023 the record stood at $6.05 billion when Josh Harris and his group purchased the Washington Commanders. In only three years, the record price for an NFL franchise has increased by more than 50%. Obviously the Seahawks did not become 50% more valuable because they won more games; instead, this deal reflects how investors are willing to pay for more ownership in the NFL. The most important part of the transaction is that by selling for $9.6 billion, the Seahawks may have created a new benchmark for the other 31 NFL teams.
Valuing an NFL team is far different from a traditional public company. For example, Apple or Amazon trade every day, so investors are constantly determining what those businesses are worth. However, NFL teams can stay within the same family or investment group for decades. The Chicago Bears have been controlled by the Halas-McCaskey family since the league’s earliest years, while the New York Giants have remained under the Mara family for roughly a century. Without frequent sales, there is no constantly changing market prices for these franchises. That’s why every new sale becomes increasingly important for determining the price of these teams. When the Denver Broncos sold for $4.65 billion in 2022, it set a new record, and one year later the Commanders broke that record. Now Seattle has pushed that record to $9.6 billion. Each transaction keeps setting a new record, and showing what someone is willing to pay to enter the NFL.
The problem is that these ricing prices are making it even harder for even billionaires to buy NFL teams. The $9.6 billion Seahawks deal illustrates this perfectly. The Khosla family is the controlling owner, but they aren’t the only investors in this deal. Private investment firms like the Carlyle Group, Sixth Street, and Dynasty Equity also joined the group as minority investors. This type of investment wasn’t possible a few years ago. Recently in 2024 the NFL changed its rules to allow private-equity firms to own up to 10% of a franchise. Before that change, NFL teams could have individual limited partners, but institutional private-equity funds were not allowed. As franchise values moved into the billions, allowing PE access gave owners and buyers access to another large source of capital.
For PE firms the attraction is quite simple. They are allowed to invest in NFL teams without having to buy the entire team. According to the NFL, these investments are passive, meaning PE firms do not get voting powers or control over decisions like drafting players or picking a coach. Their main incentive is betting on the financial value of the franchise. For example, a 5% stake in the $9.6 billion Seattle deal would be equivalent to around $480 million, and if the franchise appreciated to $15 billion that would total to around $750 million. Although there is no guarantee that valuations will continue to rise at that pace, the Seahawks sale proves that the potential is there. Furthermore, the league requires investors to hold these stakes for at least six years, making these long-term investments that rely on long-term appreciation gains.
Private equity also gives controlling owners another way to assess the value of their teams without entirely selling them. If a controlling owner chooses to sell a 5% stake in a franchise valued at $9.6 billion, that stake would be worth roughly $480 million. The owner could receive that cash while still owning the team. This is useful as an NFL owner's wealth can be tied up in the franchise itself. Instead of having to sell the entire team to access that wealth, owners now have another group of investors willing to purchase small stakes, providing additional liquidity.
The addition of private equity into the NFL could make these minority transactions a part of valuing NFL teams. In the past, an owner might have had very few buyers capable of purchasing even a small piece of a multi-billion-dollar franchise. Now, large investment firms can compete for those stakes. If an investor pays $500 million for 5% of a team, for example, that transaction implies the entire franchise is worth roughly $10 billion. This gives owners another way to establish the value of their teams without needing to sell them completely. As more minority stakes are bought and sold, NFL valuations could become based on more than the rare full franchise sale.
That is what makes the Seahawks deal important beyond its giant price tag. Seattle has established a new record while the NFL is simultaneously opening ownership to a much larger pool of capital. Other owners can now point to the Seahawks when valuing their franchises, while private-equity firms give them more potential buyers for smaller pieces. The result could be a loop where higher sale prices create higher benchmarks, those benchmarks support higher prices for minority stakes, and those transactions then reinforce the value of the entire franchise. Therefore the next NFL team may not need to be sold for the Seahawks deal to have a large impact; instead, a 5% stake could be enough to show that another NFL franchise is worth $10 billion.