Seahawks sale rumors swirl ahead of Super Bowl, Paul Allen’s estate denies report
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SEATTLE (AP) — The Seattle Seahawks will go up for sale after the team’s appearance in the Super Bowl on Feb. 8, ESPN reported Friday night.
Citing unnamed sources, ESPN said talks between Seahawks ownership and the NFL have been going on over the past week.
The estate of late Seahawks owner Paul Allen, however, is denying the report, according to a statement released to The Associated Press and other outlets.
“We don’t comment on rumors or speculation, and the team is not for sale,” a spokesperson for the Paul Allen Estate said. “We’ve already said that will change at some point per Paul’s wishes, but there is no news to share. Our focus right now is winning the Super Bowl and completing the sale of the Portland Trail Blazers in the coming months.”
The Seahawks — who’ll try for their second Super Bowl title when they play the New England Patriots in Santa Clara, California — have been in the Allen family since 1997, when Paul bought the Seahawks for $194 million from then-owner Ken Behring.
An NFL spokesman said the league had no comment.
Since Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, died in 2018 from complications of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma at 65, the Seahawks and NBA’s Trail Blazers have been owned by his sister, Jody. The estate agreed in September to sell the Trail Blazers to an investment group led by Carolina Hurricanes owner Tom Dundon.
In 2022, Jody Allen acknowledged the Seahawks would one day go up for sale, according to the wishes of her late brother.
“The time will come when that changes given Paul’s plans to dedicate the vast majority of his wealth to philanthropy,” read a statement she released in July of 2022. “But estates of this size and complexity can take 10 to 20 years to wind down. There is no preordained timeline by which the teams must be sold.”
Before Friday’s practice, Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald discussed Jody Allen’s involvement and noted that they speak after each game.
“The thing that sticks out to me about Jody was her enthusiasm about where she wanted our team to be, our franchise to be as a vision of the Seattle Seahawks and that was during our interview process,” Macdonald said. “Honestly, that’s really where I was like, ‘OK, this is something I feel really strongly about, that I think that I could help create that.’ So everything, I think, has been through that lens, and it’s very clear of what type of team she wants and she’s been incredibly supportive.
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AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl