Seahawks to be sold to Vinod, Neal Khosla group for record-$9.6B
SEATTLE – A group headed by the Khosla family – Vinod Khosla, his wife Neeru and son Neal, who a year ago purchased a small stake in the San Francisco 49ers – is set to become the fourth owners in the 51-year history of the Seattle Seahawks.
The price tag is hefty – $9.612 billion, according to multiple reports that were confirmed to the Seattle Times by a league source, blowing away the previous record paid for an NFL franchise of $6.05 billion for the Washington Commanders in July 2023.
That price falls just short of the record for a North American Sports franchise of the $10 billion that the Los Angeles Lakers of the NBA were sold for last October.
The Seahawks on Saturday afternoon made the news official in a statement noting that the Paul G. Allen Estate had entered into an agreement to sell the team to the Khosla family, which a year ago bought a 3.1% share of the San Francisco 49ers (which will now have to be sold).
“We are honored to be entrusted as the next stewards of the Seattle Seahawks,” Vinod Khosla, who co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982 after earning an MBA at Stanford, said in the statement. “We look forward to building on the winning legacy Paul Allen created and to earning the trust of the Seahawks organization and fans everywhere.”
A memo released by the NFL to all teams Saturday afternoon stated that Neeru Khosla will be the controlling owner and that Neal Khosla “will be expected to have a significant leadership role in the ownership group.”
Vinod Khosla later took to X to further confirm the news stating “Excited to be part of this great franchise. Also excited to see the money all go to a non-profit. No other comments till sale is final.”
The Paul G. Allen Estate, which has been chaired by Jody Allen since Paul Allen’s death in Oct. of 2018, put the team up for sale on Feb. 18. That decision was made as part of a directive left by Paul Allen that all of his assets eventually be sold with the proceeds going to charity.
The sale could be approved at a league meeting on Aug. 26, according to ESPN. The agreement will first be sent to the NFL’s finance committee for review and then on to the league where it will have to be approved by 24 of 32 owners.
News of the agreement received a glowing endorsement from King County council member Pete von Reichbaur – who served a key role in brokering the sale of the team to Paul Allen in 1997 – in a statement released Saturday afternoon.
“If you ask anyone in Silicon Valley who has worked with the Khosla family, they will be bringing the same tradition of excellence that the Nordstrom family started the franchise with and the Allen family continued with,” the statement read. “The trust got the highest bidder and the Seahawks got the best prospective owners.”
The NFL memo, first made public by the NFL Network, stated that “there had been robust interest” in the team since it first went on sale in February with the Khosla group “emerging as the Club’s preferred buyer among multiple qualified bidders.”
The hope of the team and league all along had been that the sale and ownership transfer is completed by the time the regular season begins with the Seahawks hosting the first game of the year on Sept. 9 against the New England Patriots.
The Khosla group was among the first reported as weighing a bid on the Seahawks in May, and it was revealed last week that they were one of two finalists, the other being a group led by Boston Celtics alternate governors Wyc Grousbeck and Aditya Mittal.
There was speculation a sale was close after it was reported in late June that a deadline for initial bids had passed. Seahawks vice chair Bert Kolde was in Sun Valley, Idaho, last week attending the annual conference hosted by Allen & Company, which was hired by the estate to help run the sale. It was thought Kolde was there in part to meet about the sale.
A report earlier this week stated that a former Seahawk could be part of the ownership group, but a source confirmed to the Seattle Times that did not happen.
Vinod and Neeru Khosla have been married since 1980 after being a couple since age 16, according to his bio on Wikipedia, which Vinod Khosla included in a link on X.
Neeru Khosla, who has a master’s degree in molecular biology from San Jose State University, is described in the NFL memo as an educator and entrepreneur.
Vinod Khosla, 71, born in Pune, India, is a co-founder of Sun Microsystems and a founder of Khosla Ventures, a venture capital firm based in Menlo Park, California. Neal Khosla, a Stanford grad, is the co-founder and CEO of Curai Health in Palo Alto, described as an AI-driven virtual healthcare company and wellness platform provider. His worth was estimated at $15.6 billion by Forbes Magazine in May.
Paul G. Allen bought the team from Ken Behring in 1997 for $194 million, encouraged to do so by local officials after Behring tried to move the Seahawks to southern California. Allen completed the sale after voters approved a measure to help fund the construction of what is now Lumen Field.
Behring bought the team for $80 million in 1988 from the initial ownership group headed up by the Nordstrom family, which paid a buy-in fee of $16 million to join the league as an expansion franchise in 1976.
It is the first time in the Super Bowl era that a team coming off a title will change owners the following season.
That the Khoslas were only minority owners of the 49ers for one season before making a bid on the Seahawks doesn’t give a significant track record on how they will operate now as majority owners.
After the news of their 49ers purchase was revealed, each said it was because of a love of the sport built through attending games for decades.
“My father and I have been season ticket holders for 30 years, going to games at The Stick starting when I was a child through the last 11 years at Levi’s Stadium,” said Neal Khosla in a statement release through the 49ers on behalf of the Khosla family last year. “For us, becoming members of the 49ers family is a dream come true and we’re honored to be a part of the team’s future success and continued impact on the Bay Area community.”
Vinod Khosla’s bio on his company’s website states that he earned a bachelor’s in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi then attempted to start a soy milk company in India “to serve millions of households without refrigeration.” When that failed, he came to the United States, earned a master’s in biomedical engineering from Carnegie Mellon, and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, which brought him to Silicon Valley.
Vinod Khosla said in a speaking engagement following the 49ers purchase that, “Neal and I have had season tickets since he was probably five, and we’ve come to games together. It’s probably one of the best things we do, supporting for over 25 years. (The decision to buy into the 49ers) was pretty easy.”
On his personal website, Neal Khosla also once wrote: “I’m an obsessive sports fan,” adding that, “I’ve worked/consulted for professional sports teams like the San Francisco 49ers and Miami Heat, but more than anything I like watching sports and bringing a quantitative and analytical lens to understanding the game within the game.”
Neal Khosla was also named to the 2021 Forbes 30 Under 30 Healthcare list, writing: “Neal Khosla’s startup Curai Health is using AI to help improve the scale and efficiency of virtual care delivery.”