SEATTLE — The Seattle Seahawks will go up for sale after the team’s appearance in the Super Bowl on Feb. 8, ESPN reported Friday night.<\/p>\n
Citing unnamed sources, ESPN said talks between Seahawks ownership and the NFL have been going on over the past week. <\/p>\n
The estate of late Seahawks owner Paul Allen, however, is denying the report, according to a statement released to The Associated Press and other outlets.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t comment on rumors or speculation, and the team is not for sale,\u201d a spokesperson for the Paul Allen Estate said. “We\u2019ve already said that will change at some point per Paul\u2019s wishes, but there is no news to share. Our focus right now is winning the Super Bowl and completing the sale of the Portland Trail Blazers in the coming months.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Seahawks \u2014 who’ll try for their second Super Bowl title when they play the New England Patriots in Santa Clara, California \u2014 have been in the Allen family since 1997, when Paul bought the Seahawks for $194 million from then-owner Ken Behring. <\/p>\n
An NFL spokesman said the league had no comment.<\/p>\n
Since Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, died in 2018<\/a> from complications of non-Hodgkin\u2019s lymphoma at 65, the Seahawks and NBA’s Trail Blazers have been owned by his sister, Jody. The estate agreed in September to sell the Trail Blazers<\/a> to an investment group led by Carolina Hurricanes owner Tom Dundon. <\/p>\n In 2022, Jody Allen acknowledged the Seahawks would one day go up for sale, according to the wishes of her late brother. <\/p>\n \u201cThe time will come when that changes given Paul\u2019s plans to dedicate the vast majority of his wealth to philanthropy,\u201d read a statement she released in July of 2022. \u201cBut estates of this size and complexity can take 10 to 20 years to wind down. There is no preordained timeline by which the teams must be sold.\u201d<\/p>\n Before Friday’s practice, Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald discussed Jody Allen’s involvement and noted that they speak after each game. <\/p>\n \u201cThe thing that sticks out to me about Jody was her enthusiasm about where she wanted our team to be, our franchise to be as a vision of the Seattle Seahawks and that was during our interview process,\u201d Macdonald said. \u201cHonestly, that\u2019s really where I was like, \u2018OK, this is something I feel really strongly about, that I think that I could help create that.\u2019 So everything, I think, has been through that lens, and it\u2019s very clear of what type of team she wants and she\u2019s been incredibly supportive.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n