Is Jody Allen being pressured to sell the Seahawks by the NFL?
That was the allegation in a story in The Wall Street Journal over the weekend, which asserted that the ownership structure of the Seahawks following the death of Paul Allen in 2018 runs counter to league rules, and the league wants Jody Allen to divest herself of the team as a result. The story stated further that the league fined the Seahawks $5 million recently for not adhering to league rules regarding ownership structure.
However, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said that report was not true when asked about it during his annual Super Bowl news conference Monday. Seahawks vice chair Bert Kolde also attended the news conference and said he had no comment on the report.
That the league may be pressuring Allen to sell the Seahawks may have spurred the reports that broke Friday, saying Allen is expected to put the Seahawks up for sale following the Super Bowl on Sunday against the New England Patriots in Santa Clara, Calif.
The Paul G. Allen Estate released a statement later Friday saying that the Seahawks are not currently for sale.
As the WSJ story recounted, the Seahawks — as well as other Paul Allen-owned assets — were placed in a trust after Paul Allen died in October 2018.
The trust is managed by his sister, Jody Allen, who was installed as team chair of the Seahawks.
The Seahawks were placed in the trust per the dictates of Paul Allen, who also directed that his assets eventually be sold so that “the vast majority of his wealth would be donated.
In a statement in 2022, Jody Allen said, “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.”
But as the WSJ story reported, league rules require that an individual and not an entity, such as a trust, has to be the controlling owner of a franchise and that the league is pushing for the Seahawks to get in compliance with their wishes. (The Green Bay Packers are publicly owned but the NFL voted in 1980 that such a structure would not be approved for any new owners).
The WSJ reported that the league decided to allow Jody Allen to stay in control of the team through the passing of the time when the trust would have to give 10% of any sale to the state of Washington.
That clause was part of a 1997 resolution that helped fund the construction of Lumen Field. That resolution expired in May 2024, though a source has said it was more logically viewed as expiring the following year because of paperwork and other issues, in terms of it clearing the way for the team to be put up for sale.
The passing of those dates, the WSJ story indicated, has the league feeling it is now time for Allen to sell the team.
The WSJ story also insinuated that there began to be more pressure put on Allen when she reached an agreement to sell the Portland Trail Blazers in September 2025.
The WSJ story stated that Allen was viewed as having “pushed back against the NFL’s reminders that she was supposed to sell the franchise.
The WSJ story reported that the league’s frustration grew to the point that the NFL issued the Seahawks a $5 million fine for being out of compliance with ownership requirements.
The league has denied that assertion, both to the WSJ and again in a statement from NFL spokesperson Brian McCarthy to Pro Football Talk on Sunday night stating: “As we told the WSJ yesterday on the record, the team was not fined.”
Goodell then added another denial later Monday.
A few have theorized that some in the league want to see the Seahawks sold to reestablish the value of all teams.
The last NFL team sold was the Washington Commanders in 2023 for a reported $6.5 billion.
Reports have stated the Seahawks would go for $7 billion-$8 billion, setting a record for an NFL franchise and establishing a new baseline for any other team that might go up for sale anytime soon.
The Commanders’ sale price blew far past the previous record, which had been set just the year before by the sale of the Denver Broncos at $4.6 billion.
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