The league’s first Black team president — a big ‘Star Wars’ fan — still has cleanup to do after the Commanders paid a $10 million fine in 2021 for a toxic work environment under owner Daniel Snyder.
On the walls of Suite 439 at FedEx Field, home of the Washington Commanders, hang portraits of icons Muhammad Ali, Maya Angelou and Tupac Shakur. There’s also a jersey signed by fan favorite Doug Williams and a framed Playboy magazine article that mentions the team from 1973, the year the Redskins first played in the Super Bowl. Outside the oversized windows is the emerald-green playing field and a majestic view of dark clouds filling the sky as they slowly approach the stadium. Suite 439 was once a luxury box used by spectators. Now it’s the office of Commanders team president Jason Wright.
For Wright, 40, neither nature nor any of the items in his expansive office excite him more than the Darth Vader collectibles scattered throughout. They are, to some degree, his inspiration. “Sometimes,” he tells Forbes, “you have to access the dark side to get the deal done.”
Daniel Snyder and Tanya Snyder posing with former players.
Rob Carr/Getty Images
As the 2022 National Football League season gets underway, Wright finds himself borne back into the team’s dark side. Since 2020, when owner Daniel Snyder hired Wright to clean up his mess, no other NFL franchise has suffered more brand damage than the Washington Football Team. It was so bad that even Congress got involved. More than 40 women came forward to accuse team officials of years of sexual harassment, intimidation and bullying, and a subsequent league investigation revealed little detail. Last year, the dark cloud of a “highly unprofessional” workplace cost the team a $10 million fine and much more in reputational damage.
Snyder, who denied personal wrongdoing, took take a step back, leaving in charge of day-to-day operations his wife, Tanya Snyder, and Wright, an ex-player who’s the NFL’s first Black team president. Tanya Snyder, the co-CEO, tells Forbes that Wright has decision-making authority, including the ability to hire and fire, to guide the $5.6 billion franchise out of the darkness. But Wright is under no illusions. Dan Snyder, who didn’t participate in this story, has the final say.
“If your goal is to have something peaceful and cushy, this would suck,” Wright says of the job of redeeming what many observers consider unredeemable. “That’s not how I’m wired. When it’s a shitshow, every decision you make matters. I like that. I want to be the man in the arena.”
Wright says his experiences with Dan Snyder “have not been perfect by any means. We’ve had our share of heated arguments. We’ve had to learn to work together.”
As president, Wright has made some mistakes, such as botching a jersey-retirement ceremony for franchise legend Sean Taylor, who was killed in a home invasion in November 2007 at the age of 24.
Bringing the Commanders back to respectability is akin to climbing Mount Everest, a rival NFL team executive tells Forbes. To reach the summit, Wright must endure the altitude, the executive says, and severe weather could end the journey at any time.
Phil de Picciotto, a longtime Wright advocate, says he isn’t surprised that Wright is attempting the climb. But de Picciotto, the founder and president of sports agency Octagon, says he’s not sure the herculean effort is worth it.
Wright, however, won’t hear about retreat. “I never considered quitting,” Wright says. “I don’t have that in me.”
Can Wright Restore the Commanders?
Raised outside Los Angeles by parents Sam, an insurance salesman, and Susan, a flight attendant, Wright said he was a “nerd” growing up, a huge fan of the Star Wars series. A favorite is episode five, “The Empire Strikes Back.” At age 11, Wright signed up for Boy Scouts, only to discover he wasn’t much interested. When his parents forced him to complete the scouting program, he says he learned an important life lesson — commitment. He refers to rehabbing the image of the Commanders as a “civic duty.”
Wright played football at Northwestern, and after he graduated in 2004 with a degree in psychology, the San Francisco 49ers signed him as an undrafted free agent. Wright’s NFL career as a running back lasted seven seasons, including time with the Atlanta Falcons, the Arizona Cardinals and the Cleveland Browns. He accumulated over 1,200 total yards and five touchdowns, and made roughly $4 million in his career, according to Spotrac, a website that tracks sports contracts.
In 2010, Wright left the league and earned an MBA from the University of Chicago before landing a job at consultancy firm McKinsey. There, Wright co-authored a 2019 report on the racial wealth gap, learned how to build cash flow statements and became intrigued with the psychology of business. Wright called the time at the firm “good training to be a chief executive.”
“I never considered quitting. I don’t have that in me.”
The Commanders’ financial performance puts them far behind traditional rival the Dallas Cowboys. The Washington team posted $544 million in revenue in Wright’s first full year, according to Forbes data. That was up from $388 million in 2020, when NFL numbers were skewed due to Covid-19. In 2019, before Wright’s hire, revenue was $504 million.
The Cowboys, however, led NFL franchises with $1.1 billion in revenue in 2021, according to Forbes data. No Commanders fan worth the name would be happy about that.
Tanya Snyder tells Forbes the Commanders “had some failure going on” during the dark years. Asked about the family possibly selling the franchise, Snyder says they haven’t contemplated the idea, however, “it would have been a heck of a lot easier – just sell the team and run away.”
Wright says the family wants to keep the business and pass it down to their children. The team takes full responsibility for its mistakes, he says, and is now on what he calls the other side of its problems and in pursuit of becoming the NFL’s “gold standard.”
“It’s our job to manage through the lingering challenges of the past,” Wright says. “And we can’t be frustrated about it.”
The Commanders provided Forbes a copy of its July 2022 workplace update – a 15-page report from consulting firm Vestry Laight. It details improvement in employee perception of the organization, adding that since January, 32% of the team’s overall hires have been women and 35% are people of color. The report notes six employee complaints during that time, five of which it characterizes as “minor instances of unprofessional behavior.” Wright says the team passed a workplace culture stress test after a personnel issue on the dance team and an offending individual was terminated within 48 hours.
“We have the blocking and tackling in place,” Wright says of the revamped Commanders front office. “The best thing we can do is show and prove.”
Adds Tanya Snyder: “We’re doing everything we can to be the most successful that we can. And the numbers, I think, will roll out.”
The Commanders are led on the field by respected head coach, cancer survivor Ron Rivera, who will be seeking his first winning season on the job, though the Commanders made the playoffs as a 7-9 division winner in 2020. That was only the sixth time the Commanders qualified for the postseason since 1999, when Snyder purchased the club for $800 million, then a record amount paid for a U.S. sports franchise.
For Wright, part of making the Commanders the gold standard means steering the attack on the racial wealth gap. He has plans to do this by lobbying for a venue in Northern Virginia, a “beasty ” 200-acre, $3 billion real estate project that, besides a new 55,000-seat stadium, will include a smaller theater to host concerts and residential and commercial space. It’ll offer vendor contracts to Black-owned businesses. In a way, Wright himself is part of the Commanders’ path to redemption.
To make this dream come true, Wright will need to convince politicians to contribute more than $300 million in public funds.
“In the short term, we’re under intense scrutiny,” Wright says. “Every little mistake will be met with some version of, ‘Man, this team is sorry.’ I know that.” Still, he adds, “It’s my job to fortify the brand.”
Wright considers two former players — Doug Williams and Bobby Mitchell —symbols of how Black individuals helped redeem the team in the past. The Redskins, under founder and longtime owner George Preston Marshall, were the last NFL team to integrate when Mitchell, a future Hall of Famer, joined the team in 1962. Twenty-six years later, Williams became the first Black quarterback to win a Super Bowl. “They changed the community here,” Wright says. “They represent the franchise going from lagger to leader.”
The Snake Tattoo
Win or lose, Wright likes to fortify himself at Ambar, a Balkan restaurant in the Capitol Hill section of Washington. “It’s tequila meets vodka,” is how he describes his favorite Ambar beverage. “It’s strong,” he says, “but not that strong.”
Wright has a tattoo of a black snake visible on his left hand. The Commanders’ president got the body ink while serving in his current post — an unusual move for someone in Wright’s position. “It’s me being comfortable,” he says, adding that the art is a reminder of the battle scars and the wisdom gained in his first two seasons running the Commanders.
“It will be different this year. The experiences people will have will be better. The team on the field will be better.”
“We’ve probably had two decades worth of professional business experiences in the last two years,” Wright says. “Things that most CEOs and presidents would accumulate over a lifetime running an organization.
“It will be different this year,” he says. “The experiences people will have will be better. The team on the field will be better.”
Like Darth Vader, the Washington Commanders will need to emerge from the dark side. Wright can relate. “It’s the ultimate redemption story,” Wright says. “At the 11th hour, Vader does what needs to be done and fulfills his mission. He’s a reminder that no matter how far you’ve gone, it can always be turned around.”
MORE FROM FORBES
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jabariyoung/2022/09/10/jason-wright-channels-darth-vader-in-his-struggle-to-redeem-the-nfls-washington-commanders/