Dan Snyder Allegedly Made Commanders Pay Him $4.5 Million to Put Logo on His Own Private Jet
By Liam McKeone
Dan Snyder is in big trouble this time. We think. There have been so many reports about his alleged financial improprieties one would figure he'd be sunk by now, but no. He is still the owner of the Washington Commanders and is still looking to sell the team for many billions of dollars. But Tuesday's bombshell from ESPN's Don Van Natta Jr. really does seem significant. And also includes a particular hilarious bit of financial shenanigans from Snyder.
In short, Van Natta reports Snyder broke rules by securing a big loan from Bank of America without getting approval from his minority partners back in 2019. The partners' objection to that led to Snyder borrowing more money to buy them all out. The initial loan is now a "focus" of federal prosecutors and is being investigated by the FBI and IRS. When those two team up, things are not good! The article goes on to detail other ways the minority partners claim Snyder has used the Commanders as a shady front to fill his own pockets.
Including charging the franchise an "advertising fee" worth $4.5 million to put the team logo on his own jet.
They said Snyder's "brazen actions have the obvious purpose of protecting Snyder's self-dealing and other unauthorized conduct from being further exposed, questioned or restrained by the Board -- and of enabling him to continue using [the team] as a personal piggy bank."
With the benefit of the financial report and their own digging, the partners alleged that Snyder had used team funds to help pay for his two "personal yachts, multiple residences, the services of more than 60 members of his personal staff, multiple vehicles in the U.S. and Europe and countless meals, wine/beverages [and] entertainment."
The partners said they discovered Snyder had leased his personal jets back to the team. Besides Snyder paying himself a salary of $10 million a year, he also had arranged for the franchise to pay him a total of $4.5 million for having the team logo emblazoned on his personal jet. "An advertising fee," Snyder had called it, documents show.
Above all it is just stunningly blatant to charge your own team nearly $5 million by calling yourself an advertiser when putting the logo on your plane. Just an absolutely wild claim, but it somehow seems par for the course for Snyder.