Key Points
- A group led by Vinod Khosla agreed to buy the Seattle Seahawks for $9.612 billion.
- It is the largest sale in NFL history, topping the Commanders' $6.05 billion in 2023.
- Khosla, a 49ers limited partner since 2025, will divest that stake to become control owner.
- Paul Allen's estate is selling; NFL owners are set to vote on the deal in late August.
The Seattle Seahawks are changing hands for the largest price in NFL history. The estate of the late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen announced Saturday that it has agreed to sell the franchise to a group led by venture capitalist Vinod Khosla for a reported $9.612 billion, a record for an American football team and one of the largest control transactions in the history of professional sports.
Khosla, who co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982 and later founded Khosla Ventures, is worth an estimated $13.7 billion and was an early backer of OpenAI, DoorDash, and Instacart. He is also, tellingly, a San Francisco 49ers limited partner — he bought a 3.1% stake in the NFC West rival in 2025 at an $8.5 billion valuation — and will divest that holding to take control of Seattle. "We are honored to be entrusted as the next stewards of the Seattle Seahawks," Khosla said in a statement, per ESPN. "We look forward to building on the winning legacy Paul Allen created."
The sale carries out a directive Allen, who died in 2018, left his sister Jody Allen, the estate's executor: sell the Seahawks and the NBA's Portland Trail Blazers and donate the proceeds to charity. The Blazers went first, sold to NHL owner Tom Dundon for $4.25 billion; the Seahawks close the estate's exit from pro sports. Khosla's group beat out a competing bid led by steel magnate Aditya Mittal.
The read: the number is the story. At $9.612 billion, the Seahawks top the Commanders' $6.05 billion sale from 2023 and sit just below the $10 billion the Buss family got for the Lakers in 2025 — a run of prices that has decoupled from what any team actually earns. What is buying these franchises is tech and private-equity capital: the same money that took the Celtics for $6.1 billion is now buying NFL control, and a Silicon Valley financier who made his fortune betting on startups is about to own a football team outright. The deal still needs approval from three-quarters of NFL owners, who are expected to vote at a special meeting in late August.
Source: ESPN, Seattle Seahawks.
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