Imagine, if you will, a massive press conference is called at the Virginia Mason Athletic Center in Renton, Washington just a few months from now. Seated at a long table in front of hoards of reporters and cameras is Jody Allen, along with General Manager John Schneider, and Team President Chuck Arnold, and they joined by the likes of billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, Zillow founder Rich Barton, Hollywood actor Chris Pratt, Sir Mx A Lot, Guns And Roses Founder Duff McKagan, and Marshawn Lynch.

MacKenzie Scott is announced as the new majority owner of the Seattle Seahawks. She tells reporters that she will maintain a low profile in the public eye, trusting Schneider and Mike Macdonald to continue a winning culture, but she also assures the fanbase that she will not be an absent owner. She will attend league meetings, she will maintain weekly meetings with Schneider on the state of the team, and if she feels like she needs to step in when things don’t seem to be working, she will do so. The main reason she purchased the team, as she explains, is that she sees it as a valuable asset to the community that she loves, and she wants to continue the tradition of good stewardship that Paul Allen and his sister Jody set forth for almost three decades.

Jody Allen reiterates that she has always been a fan of the team, and she thanks the new owners of allowing her to maintain a small owning interest in it. She cites that she has a closeness with John Schneider and Mike Macdonald, and would be willing to continue being supportive of them in anyway she can without circumventing the flow of the new ownership group.

Rich Barton simply says that he recognized the value of the Seahawks in the Pacific Northwest and was happy to be a part of a group that would continue being good stewards of the team. He says similar things to what Scott said about trusting the smart minds that run the franchise.

Chris Pratt gushes over how this opportunity is the ultimate dream come true for a Snohomish County kid who grew up a diehard Seahawk fan. It gets the room laughing when he says that in John and Mike he trusts, but they better sign Jaxon Smith Njigba to a big fat contract, or he’s going to have some strong words. Without missing a beat, John Schneider makes a quick awkward comedic bit over it.

Sir Mix A Lot, and McKagan talk about growing up in Seattle fans of the Seahawks, Sonics, and Mariners, and wanting to use their accumulated wealth to be a part of this group. McKagan cites putting his business degree from Seattle University to good use.

Marshawn Lynch simply says that he is here so he won’t get fined, and the room erupts. Then on a serious note, he talks about the importance of black ownership in professional sports, and football, in particular. He thanks the room of other owners for inviting him into this group, and he assures reporters that he won’t meddle in the football operations with his opinions unless they are being asked for by Schneider and Macdonald.

This is the new ownership group of the Seattle Seahawks headed by Scott. They are an eager group filled with the very wealthy, and the very rich and famous. They come with no controversy, no divisiveness, and they are easily vetted by 31 other owners in the NFL. They also come with a private equity firm holding a ten percent interest in the team which is the new trend in professional sports.

Welcome to the new world of professional sports ownership. Slowly diminishing is the old guard of rich dudes smoking cigars and sitting around a big table at league meetings while their mistresses wait for them in undisclosed locations.

The NFL is the king of all sports in North America, and its brand is now gaining tons of traction, internationally. The prices of teams are shooting up so much so that there is a very limited amount of individuals in the world who can buy one outright, and because of the bad blemishes of former owners like Daniel Snyder, and Jerry Richardson, current league owners want to present a more pristine image of who now gets a seat at their big table.

Essentially, the NFL is becoming more corporate, and as most corporations work, it wants to stay in centrist waters to maximize earning potential. It wants to appeal to the conservative Idaho potato farmer and trans coffee shop owner in Portland, equally. The league wants to appeal to as many sides of our diverse modern day culture as possible, as any smart business looking to maximize earnings would aim to do.

This sample of a new ownership group in Seattle perfectly reflects the modern day NFL, and how it wants to be seen moving forward. You have an extremely wealthy woman in her mid fifties who is devoted to philanthropy, a savvy mid aged tech guy, the very stable Jody Allen, along with a Hollywood actor with boyish charm who is rooted in faith, and a couple uber wealthy musicians, and then there is the cultural icon of Lynch to give the group a vibe that most Seattle sports fans will get behind. They reflect what the league most likely wants to be seen as moving forward.

To be clear, this is no way my prediction of who will step up, and purchase the Seattle Seahawks at some point this year. This is just a sample illustration of what a reasonable ownership could look like in the future.

As I sift through the tea leaves of this pending sale, I do believe that, whoever steps up to purchase the team, it will most likely comprise of an ownership group over one individual team owner. It is a growing trend in sports, and it has been discussed enough with the Seahawks to feel like there is momentum behind it.

The group that purchased the Denver Broncos a few years back has been quickly successful and is seen as a stabilizing presence in a league that is known for being very copy cat. Just yesterday at his press conference at the NFL scouting combine, John Schneider was asked about future ownership, and he unprompted used the term group when talking future meetings around the VMAC.

Here is why I believe the league is trending this way. I don’t think this league wants to invite controversial figures to its table. It is less likely to happen when there are groups owning teams over one big fat cat who could likely enter the league with an enormous ego.

This is why I have a very hard time seeing that the suggestion of Elon Musk buying the Seahawks being a very serious one. Sure, he has the wealth to outbid anyone for the team, but let’s think about it.

Does this league, that wants to appeal to as many people possible, want person who has a long track record of running toxic working environments with the multiple companies he owns, for which all have been sued for racial and sexual harassment multiple times over, to honestly have a seat at their table? Do they really want someone who would come in as the league’s wealthiest owner who also just so happens to go on popular podcasts waxing on about all kinds of divisive topics that come to mind, and who is known to throw his wealth at all kinds of extreme right wing political campaigns, globally?

I think the answer to that is a big fate nope. I could be wrong, of course, due to the fact that money talks loudly, but I just don’t see them wanting to invite that intangible into their club. It doesn’t seem like it would be very smart business, in the end.

The league values stability not someone with the potential to stoke flames and be a distributor to their order, and let us be clear about Musk, this is a guy who loves to disrupt, and make the moments about himself. If he purchases the Seattle Seahawks, I can envision a scenario where he would want to rebrand the team to reflect his image.

You’d have to brace for an all black wearing team called the Seattle X-Hawks, and be prepared to see them moved to Austin Texas by 2031 when the Lumen Field lease is due, if Musk doesn’t get everything he asks for from local government to refurbish the stadium even though he has all the cash in the world to do it himself. This is the energy he carries with himself, and if he doesn’t get his way, he very much known to act like a petulant child.

On the contrary, MacKenzie Scott feels like an ideal NFL owner in the 21st century. She’s uber wealthy, she’s not high profile, she’s not loud, and she is young enough to provide long standing ownership in the region. If she wanted to own the Seattle Seahawks, I believe NFL owners would welcome her with very open arms.

The big question if whether she wants this, and this we do not know. Using her as an example in this piece serves to show a type, but she is a favorite candidate of mine, personally, and many other Seahawk fans looking at this pending purchase.

In terms of her ex husband, Jeff Bezos, I think we can put ideas of him being the future owner of the Seahawks to rest. It is being reported more and more that he has no interest in owning the team, and if true, it makes sense. He now resides in his home state of Florida. If he wants to own an NFL team at some point, he would more likely be waiting out the market in Atlanta where the owner is very old, or he could be looking to see if he can pry away the Dolphins from Stephen Ross who is 85 years old. He’s got plenty of cash on hand, and he is young enough to stay patient. My hunch is that he will someday own the Miami Dolphins, and look to make that franchise great again.

Instead, I think the chances are pretty significant that new ownership will come from somewhere within this region. The Seattle area billionaire class is a big enough one where one could easily replace Scott in this scenario with the likes of Steve Ballmer, Bill Gates, Melinda French Gates, video game developer Gabe Newell, former Microsoft-y Charles Simonyi, and a few others. You can expand a bit further out to the North and also factor in about five billionaires who reside in Vancouver, BC, and then of course there is Phil Knight and his family in Oregon who can buy this team outright with all of their vast Nike capital. My point being that the Seahawks play football in a region that is not short of cash baring heavy hitters who could be future owners.

If any individual billionaire does, in fact, step up to buy the Seahawks outright, I might put a few mints on Steve Ballmer. I know he said in a 60 Minutes interview a couple years back that he owned enough sports teams with the LA Clippers, but he lives in greater Seattle, and is said to be a big Seahawks fan.

It wouldn’t be a shock if he now has a change of heart, especially with how ready made the Seahawks are to step in as the new owner, and see them continually playing for titles. If he wife is that intent of him only owning one team, does he really want to remain the owner of the Clippers (who are second fiddle in the LA market to the Lakers) when he can own the Seattle Seahawks and have the best sports franchise in the vast region of the Pacific Northwest?

It is a pretty simple question to answer in my mind, but I am way more of a NFL guy than an NBA person.

Ultimately, we shall see who steps up to purchase this team, but I wouldn’t bet against this guy being the one, and for my part, I would welcome a Ballmer purchase. In the end, I think he would very much be a culture fit, and you know he’d have an aggressive mindset to maintain a competitive edge in the league.

That said, I love the notion of MacKenzie Scott and Melinda Gates being co-owners, together. It is a trendy sentiment within the Seahawk fanbase almost to the point that I didn’t want to use it as the sample in this piece because it is so widely popular.

But an ownership involving these two people makes a ton of sense. They live in Seattle, and love it here. They are philanthropic like Paul Allen was known to be. They wouldn’t likely come in with massive egos that want to place their stamps on the team. Instead, it would be more likely that they would trust the sharp minds in place in the front office and coaching staff who just shaped a Super Bowl champion team to make the football decisions, and they would offer them whatever support they needed to sustain success. Both of them are young enough to think this ownership would stay intact for a generation of new fans in the PNW, and that is a massive positive.

This is probably the ownership group scenario that I am most rooting for, and it has very little to do with gender. It is because, on the surface, they would feel like the right people to carry the team forward as owners, and it just so happens that both are female.

Of course there is always a very real chance that the future owners will come from out of market. If they happens, I trust that Jody Allen will have them sharply vetted, as will the entire league. I won’t go through a laundry list of who those potential candidates could be, but I have a pretty strong sense that it won’t be the guy to bought Twitter and then rebranded it into a thing called X that is now a cesspool of online toxicity where people are free to use whatever slurs they want to while stoking the flames of division, and hatred. That I am almost sure of.

We shall see.

Go Hawks.