The reigning Super Bowl champions appear to be set to officially transfer ownership following an NFL record $9.613 billion sale on Saturday. A group led by Vinod Khosla have reportedly closed a deal with the estate of Paul G. Allen to purchase the team subject to owner approval at the next board of governors meeting.
Khosla, the founder of Khosla Ventures, has a net worth of $13.8B, largely from the venture capital arm of his operations. His group made early stage investments in OpenAI, DoorDash, and Instacart amongst others. He is currently a limited partner with the San Francisco 49ers, which means that as a condition of the sale, he will need to relinquish his stake in the NFC West rival franchise.
“We are honored to be entrusted as the next stewards of the Seattle Seahawks,” said Vinod Khosla on behalf of the Khosla family. “We look forward to building on the winning legacy Paul Allen created and to earning the trust of the Seahawks organization and fans everywhere.”
Allen, a cofounder of Microsoft, purchased the Seahawks for $194M back in 1997, essentially saving the team from relocation. Since then, the team has won a pair of Super Bowls (2014 & 2026) along with 10 divisional titles, while making the playoffs in 7 of the last 10 seasons.
Lumen Field, where the Seahawks call home, recently underwent $20M worth of upgrades as a result of hosting World Cup games, and is widely regarded as one of the best “home field advantages” in all of football. While the $9.6B is a new record high for an NFL franchise, it falls just short of the all time sports franchise record of $10B which Mark Walter agreed to pay in exchange for the NBA’s Los Angeles Lakers back in 2025.
While the rest of Khosla’s investment group has yet to be publicly confirmed, in an NFL memo circulated to teams, it appears as though Vinod’s wife Neeru will serve as the Seahawks controlling owner.
Photo: Mike Morris. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.