‘THE WITCH IS DEAD’: disgraced Daniel Snyder finally exits the stage

T he long national nightmare could soon be over. NFL fans in and around the nation’s capital haven’t stopped buzzing since word spread this week that Washington Commanders owner Daniel Snyder had agreed to sell the storied NFL franchise. With that hurdle cleared, it’s now down to the league’s 31 other team owners to rubber stamp the record $6.05bn deal. The rumored purchase price would exceed the guestimate Forbes came up with earlier this year for the Dallas Cowboys, ostensibly the world’s most valuable sports franchise, as well as the record $4.65bn cost of the recently sold Denver Broncos.

Never mind that the 58-year-old Snyder, one of the great sports villains of the last quarter-century, makes off like a bandit in the exchange. The news of his imminent departure has landed like Dorothy’s farmhouse in the Land of Oz. “DING DONG THE WITCH IS DEAD,” tweeted one Commanders fan. Another, speaking to radio station WTOP, likened the breakup to a “bad marriage/relationship for 20-something years, then you finally get that divorce and find a hotter, young lady that comes and puts a smile on your face.”

Their new darling is Josh Harris, the 58-year-old billionaire private equity shark who already owns pieces of the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers, the NHL’s New Jersey Devils and the Premier League’s Crystal Palace – a deep pocket who likes to win, in other words. He leads an ownership group that includes basketball icon Magic Johnson and the manufacturing plutocrat Mitchell Rales. Their winning bid comes as something of a surprise given that the Commanders had long looked like Jeff Bezos’s team to lose. But the Amazon founder never made a formal bid for the Commanders, and Snyder never gave the impression that he’d sell to the