In the digest: the race to buy the Seattle Seahawks has reached its final stage—two main contenders have been identified, with a record sum expected of up to $9.5 billion. It’s also reported that Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh suffered an injury due to his participation in the World Baseball Classic, which led to a slow start to the season.
Two clear contenders for a Seattle Seahawks purchase: leaders named in the race for a record amount
The process of selling the Seattle Seahawks is heading into the home stretch: according to the respected publication Front Office Sports, the club has narrowed the field to two groups of bidders. The move follows logically from a story that began back in February, when Paul Allen’s heirs announced they would put the franchise up for sale. The deal is expected to break all records in the National Football League—possibly reaching as high as $9.5 billion, a figure that only a few years ago seemed like fantasy for any sports asset.
All eyes right now are on two consortiums. The first is led by Aditya Mittal, the Indian steel magnate and CEO of ArcelorMittal, who already holds a minority stake in the Boston Celtics. Alongside him in this group is Wyke Grousbeck, a former Celtics governor—rumor has it he will be in Seattle part-time and, in effect, run the team. The second group is led by Vinod Khosla, co-founder of Sun Microsystems and an investor in the San Francisco 49ers. In May 2025, he acquired 3.1% of the shares of the California team. If his bid for the Seahawks succeeds, Khosla would have to sell his stake in the 49ers under NFL rules that prohibit owning multiple clubs in the league at the same time.
Notably, according to the same report, one of the two groups includes at least one former Seahawks player, though his name is being kept secret. Which of the two groups is courting the veteran is also unknown. At the same time, several previously named candidates have already dropped out: Todd Boehly, owner of Chelsea and co-owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Lakers and the Sparks, is no longer pursuing the purchase, while Canadian billionaire Steve Apostolopoulos has stepped back from the candidacy himself.
Expert estimates are striking: sports attorney Irwin Kishner of the Herrick Feinstein sports law group suggested the final price could reach $9.5 billion. That would be far above the prior NFL record of $6.05 billion paid for the Washington Commanders in 2023. Paul Allen’s estate management has so far stayed silent: a foundation representative said there are “no updates on the sale process.” Still, analysts broadly agree that all that remains is to wait for the official announcement of the winning bidder.
Buying the Seahawks would be a league record, but also a milestone for Seattle: the franchise won the Super Bowl in 2025 (the club’s second title in history) and has been under the Allen family’s control since 1997—now it will finally have a new owner. Under the terms of Paul Allen’s will, all proceeds from the sale of both of his sports teams (including the Portland Trail Blazers of the NBA, which have already been sold for $4 billion) are directed to charity. For potential buyers, this means not only a prestigious asset, but participation in preserving the legacy of one of the most prominent entrepreneurs and philanthropists of our time.
More details of the report are available on the site Seattle Sports: Report: 2 front-runners emerge in Seahawks sale process. Given the scale of the deal and its impact on the sports business, keeping up with developments is worth it for anyone interested in the economics of professional sports.
Who will become the next owner of the Seattle Seahawks? The auction narrows to two contenders
As the start of the NFL regular season approaches, one key question still hangs over the Seattle Seahawks organization—who will be the next owner of the team? The answer appears to be close. According to Front Office Sports, the bidding process has been narrowed to two main groups. One is led by Vinod Khosla, a minority shareholder in the San Francisco 49ers (a divisional rival of the Seahawks), and the other by Aditya Mittal, also a minority owner of the Boston Celtics, along with former team executive Wyke Grousbeck. However, fans shouldn’t despair at the possibility of someone tied to the 49ers coming in: as Ben Horni of Front Office Sports reports, at least one former Seahawks player is included in one of the groups of bidders. The article doesn’t specify, however, which player or which group is being referred to.
If Khosla wins the bidding, his family will have to sell the stake in the San Francisco team it acquired last spring. While these two consortiums look like the finalists, Horni allows for the possibility of a third bidder. This report aligns with the timeline that NFL insider Ian Rapoport laid out in late May on the Pat McAfee show: a new owner could be determined as early as August, and the deal could break the record—reaching $10 billion.
A change of ownership would be an unprecedented event for the Seahawks. Since 1997, the team has been owned by Paul Allen, and then by his estate. Given that the club has performed confidently over the past decade, fans hope the new owner won’t radically change the current operating model. But that doesn’t always happen—just look at the Portland Trail Blazers, where serious changes began after the ownership switch. Still, whatever the billionaire battle looks like, the Seahawks will take the field on the first game day in less than two months—this time against the New England Patriots, regardless of who signs the check.
For those unfamiliar with the details: Vinod Khosla is a well-known venture investor and co-founder of Sun Microsystems, while Wyke Grousbeck in the past was one of the owners of the Boston Celtics and helped lead the team to a championship. A $10 billion price tag would make the Seahawks the most expensive sports franchise ever in a sale, surpassing even the recent Washington Commanders deal at $6.05 billion. As the author himself noted in Field Gulls, the intrigue remains: it’s unknown which of the two finalists will come out on top, whether a third player will appear, and which group includes the former Seahawks figure. The main thing for fans is that the new owner shouldn’t disrupt the established championship culture—because changing something in a working machine is always risky.
How participation in the World Baseball Classic led to Cal Raleigh’s injury and his slow start
For the first time, the Seattle Mariners coaching staff explained in detail why playing in the World Baseball Classic (WBC) turned into trouble for catcher Cal Raleigh, troubles that lingered for nearly two months. It turns out that a right oblique injury—the muscle tear that sidelined Raleigh starting mid-May for a month—was directly tied to his attempts to make up for missed playing time after the WBC.
As the Mariners’ bench coach Manny Acta said in an interview with MLB Network, the tournament itself was organized brilliantly, but for Raleigh it became a trap. The key issue was the number of plate appearances over the two weeks of the WBC. Raleigh had only nine. In a normal spring training camp, he would have gotten far more. After returning to the Mariners’ facilities for the final week of spring training, Raleigh tried to make up the gap—working himself hard and overloading muscles that hadn’t adapted to that pace. That’s what led to the oblique strain.
“You can get nine plate appearances in four days just by chilling out in spring training. I think that’s what hurt him,” Acta said. “He came back and, probably, tried to do too much in the last week to accumulate those at-bats he missed in the WBC. That’s what injured his muscle.”
The situation was made worse by the fact that Raleigh is a team player. He kept getting on the field despite the pain, not wanting to let his teammates down. As a result, at the start of the season his numbers dropped sharply: over 61 games he was hitting .170, with an OPS of just .585, even though he had hit 9 home runs. Many insiders, including Tim Kurkijan, previously pointed to the WBC as the cause of the “death” of a player early on. Now the coach has confirmed that theory.
Acta emphasized that Raleigh “paid the price, but earned respect,” and that the player has already begun to work his way out of the slump. In his last four games he has hits, and on Tuesday—his first game back from the injured list—he recorded two doubles. The coach believes Raleigh will be able to pick up the pace in the second half of the season. This story is covered in detail in a Seattle Sports piece—a good example of how the format of an international tournament, for all its prestige, can disrupt a player’s preparation for a long season.
