NFL owners approve Seahawks sale to group led by Khosla family

ATLANTA — The Khosla family is just one step from officially taking over ownership of the Seattle Seahawks after the NFL unanimously approved their purchase of the team Wednesday afternoon.

That thumbs up arrived in a unanimous vote during a special meeting of league owners at the Atlanta Airport Marriott.

With the NFL giving its approval, the sale is expected to become final in the next week or two, and the 29-year run of ownership by Paul Allen and his sister, Jody, will pass to the Khosla group.

“I know most importantly with tremendous confidence that they will be outstanding caretakers of the Seattle Seahawks and the organization and the great partnership they have with their community,” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in making the announcement.

The Khosla group, led by husband and wife Vinod and Neeru Khosla and son Neal, reached agreement with the Allen Estate in July to buy the team for $9.612 billion, a record for an NFL franchise, shattering the previous mark of $6.05 billion that the Washington Commanders were sold for in 2023.

Now that the league has signed off on the transfer of ownership, the sides can finalize remaining details and complete the sale.

The league and team hope the sale will become final before the Seahawks kick off their season Sept. 9 against the Patriots in a rematch of their 29-13 Super Bowl win over New England in February.

“I do want to start by thanking Jody Allen and the Allen Trust for trusting us with this franchise,” Vinod Khosla said in an opening statement Wednesday, flanked by his wife, Neeru, son Neal and daughter Nina.

“… It’s pretty simple when the team is one functioning as well as it is today. How often do you get to buy a franchise that just won the Super Bowl? So we are incredibly lucky and humbled by this gift, I would say, from the Allen Trust.”

Khosla, during his opening statement, noted he has attended games at Lumen Field in the past during his roughly three decades as a fan of the 49ers. It was that interest that first got the family involved in NFL ownership, buying a 3.1% stake in that team in the spring of 2025, the family now has to sell.

“Having been to Lumen Field and watching the 12s everywhere, I do want to thank them for their passion and fervor,’’ Khosla said. “… The task ahead is actually pretty simple — keep the winning streak alive, get another Super Bowl. That simple. In general, our approach is generally going to be long-term focused. That’s our inclination always.

“So, keep winning, take a long-term approach and learn a lot. We don’t know enough. The other owners have been incredibly welcoming and willing to teach us, so we’ll learn a lot. We’ll learn a lot from management and see what they are recommending, so we’ll just be in learning mode for quite some time.”

Because the sale is not yet final, Khosla said he could not go into detail about specific plans for the franchise, and the league limited him to taking three questions.

But when he was asked his thoughts about the team’s long-term future at Lumen Field, where the team is under lease to play through the 2031 season with three 10-year options, Khosla said: “Well first, Lumen Field is iconic and very much a part of the Seahawks brand, so that’s all I would say for now. Obviously we are not owners yet and we need to learn a lot more. But we will work with management and with others and the community in Seattle to hopefully preserve this iconic brand.”

After the meetings concluded, Goodell was asked in a small group session with media whether there was “any sort of clause in the deal” relating to the team’s long-term future in Seattle. Goodell said there was not, but said “there never has been to my knowledge” such a clause in such deals.

“It’s an ownership transition, it’s a selling of an asset,” Goodell said. “Obviously we go through a long process of due diligence. They understand the importance of our franchises, the communities and the relationship with the communities and we are very excited about them and I think they recognize the importance of that.”

There was little suspense in the vote, as it had been expected from the minute the agreement between the Khosla family and the Allen Estate was announced on July 11 that the league would give its blessing.

The league’s finance and ownership policy committee met last week and recommended unanimously that owners approve the sale, an even stronger sign that the vote essentially would be a rubber stamp.

Shortly before the meeting began, Jody Allen and vice chair Bert Kolde — a longtime friend of Paul Allen’s who helped convince him to buy the team in 1997 — walked down a hallway and into the room where the vote was held while the Khosla family waited outside.

After the vote — which lasted roughly a half hour — Goodell made his announcement and the Khosla family spoke briefly to the media. Goodell invited the family back into the conference room for their first official meeting with other NFL owners as part of one most elite clubs in professional sports.

The Khosla family group will become the fourth owners of the Seahawks in their 51-year history.

The first was Seattle Professional Football, Inc., headed by Lloyd W. Nordstrom with partners Herman Sarkowsky, D.E. “Ned” Skinner, Howard S. Wright, M. Lamont Bean, and Lynn P. Himmelman. That group initially agreed to pay $12 million to become owners of the expansion franchise in 1974, a number that got bumped up to $16 million.

They sold the team to Ken Behring for $80 million in 1988. Allen was convinced to buy the team for $194 million in 1997 after Behring tried to move the team to Southern California.

The 29 years of Allen family ownership — after Paul died in 2018 his sister, Jody, took over as chair of the team — was the best in team history, and as successful as any in Seattle sports history.

The Seahawks won two Super Bowls, played in two others, won 11 division titles and qualified for the playoffs 16 of the past 23 seasons.

Now comes the Khosla family group.

They were not on anyone’s list of prospective buyers when the team was placed for sale on Feb. 18.

But Vinod Khosla said Wednesday that it was an easy decision to make a bid in part because “we’ve been very passionate about football for a long time.”

That pasison began for Vinod Khosla when he moved to the United States from India in 1976. Pittsburgh then the NFL’s power and he said he became a fan of the Steelers. After settling in the Bay Area, that allegiance shifted to the 49ers. And now, to the Seahawks.

“We are huge fans of football and these opportunities, especially Super Bowl winning teams, seldom come along,” he said. “So we were very excited to have the opportunity.”

Khosla, who helped found Sun Microsystems before veering into venture capital in Silicon Valley and building a net worth estimated at roughly $14 billion, also noted: “I’ve been tied to the Seattle tech community for a long time. So it was pretty easy to make the jump (to want to buy the Seahawks).”

Neeru Khosla said Neal played a significant role in convincing the family to try to purchase the team.

“He’s been a big fan of sports, and in particular football,” she said. “So he’s wanted forever to get involved and actually strategizing and doing something about that. So he’s the one who actually really pushed us into doing this.”

While the family did not take questions concerning specifics of which family members will have which roles in the organization, Neeru Khosla’s comment seemed to confirm what was revealed in a memo sent by the league to other owners in July that Neal is expected to have “a significant leadership role” in helping run the franchise.

After the sale is final, it is expected the team will hold a news conference introducing the family, at which time titles and responsibilities may become clear.

The family takes over not only a successful team on the field, but off it as the Seahawks have had 190 consecutive sellouts at Lumen Field.

Asked what he’d say to Seattle fans as the family gets set to take over as owners, Vinod Khosla replied: “I just want to say a big thank you for being such a passionate fanbase. It’s actually pretty incredible. I think it’s the best fanbase in the country of any NFL team and the 12s are such an iconic brand that it’s hard to not be honored to and humbled by inheriting that and being part of that fanbase.”

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