Steelers Minority Owners Sell Stake, Team Valued at $4 Billion
Josh Harris, the the current owner of the Washington Commanders, has reached an agreement to sell his shares of the Pittsburgh Steelers, according to a report by Forbes on Wednesday.
Harris and his partner David Blitzer, with whom he owns the Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Devils, have owned a slightly less than 5% share of the Pittsburgh Steelers since 2020. They paid $150 million for the share.
With Harris purchasing the Commanders last July, he was required to sell his and Blitzer’s shares of the Steelers. The duo decided to sell those shares to Steelers president Art Rooney II and fellow minority owner Thomas Tull. The sale realized a nearly 50% profit for Harris and Blitzer and values the Steelers at $4 billion.
The sale of the shares of the team must be approved by the other NFL owners, but since Tull and Rooney are already team owners, that process is mostly a technicality.
Tull, the billionaire former CEO of Legendary Entertainment, has been a Steelers minority owner since 2009. Tull has had interest in several fields in addition to entertainment, and his connection with financial technology company Acrisure led to it bidding on the naming rights for the the stadium, formerly known as Heinz Field, two years ago.
Harris is the third Pittsburgh minority owner to take full ownership of another NFL team. Current Cleveland Browns owner Jimmy Haslam was first a minority owner of the Steelers before buying the Brows in 2012. Haslam sold his shares of the Steelers to Scott and Russ Swank in 2013, about a year after purchasing the Browns.
Carolina Panthers owner David Tepper also owned a 5% share of the Steelers before finalizing his purchase of that franchise. He sold that stake in 2019, a year after finalizing his purchase of the Panthers, to LendingTree CEO Doug Lebda and the NC Revocable Trust, along with some shares that were sold back to the Rooney family.
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