D.C. attorney general sues Washington Commanders owners, NFL over misconduct allegations

The NFL and its team, the Washington Commanders, are facing a lawsuit amid multiple allegations of misconduct.

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RACHELLE AKUFFO: DC Attorney General Karl Racine filing a lawsuit today against the Washington Commanders, Daniel Snyder, the NFL, and Commissioner Roger Goodell. Now, the suit accuses them of colluding to lie to DC residents about the team's alleged toxic workplace culture. Our Dave Briggs is here with more. Hi, Dave.

DAVE BRIGGS: Hi, Rachelle. Nice to see you. I'm actually in Washington, DC, as luck would have it, where the entire conversation here at the Sports Business Journal Dealmakers Conference was all about pickleball until that lawsuit dropped. I'm not joking. It was really about pickleball and the new ownership groups. And then everyone began talking about that lawsuit from the DC AG aimed at the Commanders and Roger Goodell and the NFL.

I had a chance to tell the CEO of Monumental Sports Entertainment, Ted Leonsis, about it. And he wouldn't talk on camera, but he quipped, yeah, that sounds like it would play well. I also asked a high profile sports attorney here at this conference about it for background. His read of it was, quote, "This is very thin legally," and sounds to him like a headline grab on the way out the door, just one sports attorney opinion there.

As for Leonsis though, he talked about everything under the sun on camera. He owns the Washington Wizards, the Washington Capitals, the NHL, and the WNBA's Mystics. And he talked about FTX and crypto, which he is not vested in at all, but he does believe in blockchain long-term. He also shared with us his reaction to the Meta layoffs, Mark Zuckerberg letting go of 11,000 employees earlier this week, with his son, Zach, who is the president of Monumental. Listen.

TED LEONSIS: I go, does that mean they had 100,000 people? What could 100,000 people be doing? No, seriously. We're the business that has to have a lot of people-- full-time, part-time people, bricks and mortar, ticket takers, ushers, maintenance, professionals. I'm shocked that a digital company that has no-- it's not Amazon with warehouses-- had 100,000 people, and they could lay off 11,000 people.

DAVE BRIGGS: Now, for context, Leonsis is the former Vice Chairman and President of AOL, so he knows of what he talks there. His company also the frontrunner, according to "The Athletic" and "The Washington Post," to buy the Major League Baseball team here in town, the Washington Nationals. He couldn't comment on where the negotiations are, but it is clearly in process.

He would say, they don't have between $2 and $2.5 billion in cash. It sounds like they're trying to work out the financing, who to bring in on that deal. That would get Monumental closer to their goal, which is being worth $10 billion in what he says is the likelihood of companies like his and pro sports teams down the line going public, giving Wall Street, giving everyday investors access to shares in their favorite teams. Listen.

TED LEONSIS: If there's a football team for sale, there's a baseball team for sale, it's billions and billions of dollars. The pool of people who can write those kinds of checks is not great.

DAVE BRIGGS: No.

TED LEONSIS: So there's going to have to be another market. And that's why I think the public market has to emerge. And the people that go public have to be-- know how to run public companies.

DAVE BRIGGS: Hmm.

TED LEONSIS: Can't be SPACs. It can't be funky things. It's--

DAVE BRIGGS: Yeah.

TED LEONSIS: --people, organizations that look, act like a public company.

DAVE BRIGGS: So if he gets the Nats, he'd own four teams and one city, similar to Stan Kroenke in Denver. And keep your eye on Monumental for perhaps that first company that goes public down the road. Also want to let you guys know, Mark Cuban took the stage within the last half-hour. Of course, was asked about crypto and FTX.

He suggested SBF, Sam Bankman-Fried, was greedy as bleep and dumb. He also said there is regulations that is needed, that the SEC is blowing it. And one more thing, he hopes there are criminal charges related to what happened at FTX. Rachelle.

RACHELLE AKUFFO: We'll certainly have to see what happens at the end of that road. Great stuff, Dave. Good to see you, and we look forward to seeing you in studio soon.