WASHINGTON — A new name is being linked to a prospective sale of the Washington Commanders football team and he has ties to both Maryland and D.C.
On Thursday, ESPN NFL reporter Adam Schefter tweeted DC billionaire Mitchell Rales has formed a partnership with a Miami businessman, Josh Harris, to buy the Washington Commanders.
In November, Daniel and Tanya Snyder, the current owners of the Washington Commanders, announced they had hired Bank of America to start the process of potentially selling the team to new owners.
Many Commanders’ fans have theorized Amazon founder and billionaire, Jeff Bezos, may attempt to buy the team ever since that announcement was made. Bezos told CNN, in November, he had heard the buzz around the rumor but there was “not much I can say about that right now”.
While Bezos now owns a home in Washington, D.C., Rales’ roots in the nation's capital go much deeper.
Rales grew up in Montgomery County and attended the local public school system, according to his family. The Montgomery County native would eventually go on to co-found the D.C.-based manufacturing company Danaher, with his brother, in 1984.
Forbes Magazine says Rales is worth $5.6 billion dollars.
Rales is perhaps best known for Glenstone, a modern art gallery he and his wife, Emily Rales, own in Potomac.
In 2019, Rales did his first television interview with CBS Sunday Morning, at the property where he also lives. Glenstone is a 230-acre site with more than 1,300 works of art, according to CBS. Admission is free to the public.
The Rales family is no stranger to sports either.
In the early 1990’s, Rales’ brother, Steven, considered joining Peter Angelos’ Baltimore Orioles ownership team, according to the Washington Post. At the time, both Rales brothers also owned the station that would go on to become the sports radio station WTEM Team 980.
Rales’ potential business partner, Josh Harris, had already been linked to having a potential interest in buying the Commanders. Harris, who is worth more than $6 billion, according to Forbes, co-founded both Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment (HBSE) and Apollo Global Management.
HBSE owns both the New Jersey Devils and the Philadelphia 76ers, in the National Hockey League and National Basketball Association, respectively.
Harris is also a minority owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers in the National Football League, according to HBSE.