Daniel Snyder, the oft-controversial owner of the NFL’s Washington Redskins, recently made a major purchase.
Snyder has purchased a yacht worth more than $100 million, which is believed to be the first yacht in history to include an IMAX theater. According to the Guardian , the yacht is 305 feet long and was purchased from Feadship, a Dutch company that builds large boats. The IMAX installation cost an additional $3 million, the newspaper said, and the boat had to be built around the theater.
The billionaire will take delivery of the superyacht this spring.
“He wanted an Imax, that was his main request,” an executive with the boat-building company told the newspaper. The executive, Jan-Bart Verkuyl, did not identify who bought the yacht, only referring to the buyer as a “U.S. billionaire,” but the Guardian later did additional reporting to identify it as Snyder.
Surprisingly, Snyder’s new yacht isn’t even the largest or most expensive boat purchased in the recent past by an owner of a team in the NFC East division of the NFL. That’s because Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys, spent $250 million on a 357-foot superyacht, which includes a beach club and a spa.
Jones, CBS Sports reported earlier this month, actually spent more on the yacht than he did on the team, as he bought the Cowboys for $150 million in 1989. Snyder bought his team, along with its stadium, for $800 million a decade later.
But due to the sort of franchise valuation rises that make giant yacht purchases possible by their owners, the Cowboys had an estimated value of $4.8 billion as of last summer, making them the most valuable sports franchise in the world, Forbes reported. The Redskins were valued at $3.1 billion, which ranked them 10th.
Another team in the NFC East, the New York Giants, drew fire in 2017 when they were photographed partying on a yacht prior to a playoff game in 2017, the Sporting News reported at the time.
Snyder has often been a controversial figure during his time as Washington’s owner, for everything from the team’s inconsistent on-field performance to his refusal to change the team’s name from what’s widely considered a racial slur, to his habit of suing critical journalists , as well as fans .
As Snyder and the team, which currently plays in Maryland, make an expected push for a new stadium in Washington or Maryland that requires some amount of public money, expect his large yacht purchase to come up as a critical talking point by opponents of the project.