Report: Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook considering bids on Seahawks

A pair of massive names have emerged as potential bidders to buy the Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks.

Front Office Sports reported Thursday that Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Apple’s Tim Cook are each considering making bids to for the Seahawks.

What to know with Seattle Seahawks up for sale

Front Office Sports cites “five sources familiar with the matter” have said “they’ve heard Zuckerberg is considering a bid,” while four said “Cook is separately weighing an offer.”

Zuckerberg and Cook are two of four potential buyers that have emerged, according to the Front Office Sports report. The two other potential buyers have not been identified publicly.

Per the article, requests for comment were not immediately responded to by representatives of Meta (the parent company of Facebook that Zuckerberg founded) and Apple, and requests for comment from Allen & Co., the bank running the Seahawks’ sale process, and the Paul G. Allen estate, which is selling the team, were declined.

Zuckerberg, 41, has a net worth of over $206 billion, per Forbes. The 65-year-old Cook, who is stepping down as Apple CEO and becoming the executive vice president of the company’s board of directors, has a net worth of $2.9 billion.

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The Allen estate announced in February that the Seahawks were being put up for sale, less than three weeks after the team won its second Super Bowl title. A sale of the Seahawks has been expected since the 2018 death of Paul Allen, who made it a directive for his trust to sell both the Seahawks and the NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers, with proceeds to be donated to philanthropic efforts.

A sale of the Trail Blazers for $4 billion to a group led by investor Tom Dundon was recently approved by the NBA.

Allen purchased the Seahawks in 1997 from Ken Behring for $194 million. ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported in February that the sale of the Seahawks is expected to set a new record for the price for a sports franchise. The current record was set by the $10 billion sale of the NBA’s Los Angeles Lakers last year.

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