Mark Stevens Is Seahawks’ Top Minority Investor

Mark Stevens is the top minority investor in the new Seahawks ownership group—behind only members of the Khosla family, which led the NFL-record $9.612 billion purchase of the team from the Paul G. Allen estate.

The list of minority investors released Thursday was in order, from top to bottom, by size of stake, sources tell Front Office Sports. 

That means Stevens, a venture capitalist who’s on the board of Nvidia and is a Warriors minority investor, is next on the cap table following members of Vinod Khosla’s family. Stevens has an estimated net worth of $12.4 billion, according to Forbes.

He’s followed by the Aramburuzabalas, the family behind Modelo beer. The next biggest minority investor is Val Blavatnik, son of billionaire and DAZN majority owner Leonard Blavatnik.

The three private equity firms involved—Carlyle, Dynasty Equity, and Sixth Street—own the smallest stakes of the minority investor group, with former U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker, who is the sister of Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker, right above them.

Sixth Street is taking a stake of about 3%, and together Carlyle and Dynasty will own about 3%, a source familiar with the matter tells FOS. Sporticofirst reported the sizes of the PE stakes.

The specific stake size that any of the other minority owners will hold is not clear. Under NFL ownership rules, a franchise’s controlling owner must hold at least a 30 percent stake and the investment group cannot have more than 25 members.

Additionally, some of the 13 members of the minority investor group were originally part of the runner-up bidding group led by Aditya Mittal and Wyc Grousbeck, sources tell FOS—although it isn’t clear who was originally in the Mittal group. FOSpreviously reported members of the Mittal group were in discussions to potentially join the Khosla group after the Khosla family’s bid was selected as the winner.

The sale officially closed Thursday. It was ratified unanimously last week by NFL team owners during a special league meeting in Atlanta, soon after the owners on the league’s finance and ownership policy committees voted unanimously to recommend approval. 

The defending champion Seahawks were put up for sale by the Allen estate in February, 10 days after they defeated the Patriots in Super Bowl LX by a score of 29-13. The sale process, run by New York investment banking firm Allen & Company, took less than five months and resulted in bids from multiple parties before being whittled down to two suitors shortly before the deal was announced.

The Seahawks sale—and the NBA’s Blazers sale before that—was mandated by the estate of the late Microsoft cofounder. The money from both deals is earmarked for charity, although exact plans haven’t been shared yet. A representative for the Allen estate tells FOS: “Paul’s philanthropic plan will be shared at the appropriate time.”

The Khosla group represents part of a new class of ownership with multiple investors who made their money in technology, private equity, venture capital, or artificial intelligence. Khosla, 71, is the co-founder of Sun Microsystems and the founder of Khosla Ventures. His wife Neeru Khosla has been designated as the team’s controlling owner, according to the NFL. Their son Neal Khosla holds a significant leadership role in the new ownership group.

The Seahawks open the NFL season next Wednesday night in Seattle with a rematch of last year’s Super Bowl against the Patriots.

With their sale completed, it’s anyone’s guess which NFL team might go on the market next. 

In a quirk of NFL ownership rules, the Khoslas currently own both majority control of the Seahawks and a 3.1% minority stake in the 49ers, acquired by the family last spring. The 49ers stake will need to be eventually sold, although there’s no specific time frame under which Khoslas are required to do so. The 49ers will ultimately have final say over who the Khoslas sell that minority stake to, sources previously told FOS.

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