Report: Two groups emerge as favorites in Seahawks' sale process

One group from the Boston Celtics and another from the San Francisco 49ers are the leading candidates to buy the reigning Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks, Front Office Sports reported on Thursday.

Current Celtics minority owner Aditya Mittal and former Celtics governor Wyc Grousbeck lead one group, while the other is headed by 49ers minor investor Vinod Khosla, per Front Office Sports. The report also noted that one of the groups includes a former Seahawks player, but offered no further background information.

If the Khosla family wins the bid to buy the Seahawks, it would have to sell the minority stake of the 49ers that it acquired last spring. Per Forbes, Vinod Khosla, who founded the venture-capital firm Khosla Ventures, has a net worth of approximately $14 billion.

It's unclear what Grousbeck's net worth is, but his family has a net worth of about $2.2 billion, per Forbes. Similarly, Mittal's individual net worth isn't known but his family's net worth was estimated at more than $17 billion by Forbes. Mittal is the CEO of Indian steel company ArcelorMittal.

In the $6.1 billion sale of the Celtics to a group led by Bill Chisholm last August, Mittal contributed $1 billion. FOS reported at the time that Mittal would be the second-largest stakeholder of the Celtics and potentially their future alternate governor.

Though it appears the competition is down to a pair of groups, a new bidder could come forward, which happened with the sale of the Los Angeles Clippers in 2014. Steve Ballmer made a late offer of $2 billion, which was accepted.

What is known about the list of prospective buyers is that it has been whittled down following a recent submission deadline, and Front Office Sports reported that an update on the sale process is expected by next month.

Canadian billionaire Steve Apostolopoulos and Todd Boehly, who co-owns the Los Angeles Dodgers, Los Angeles Lakers and Chelsea FC, are both reportedly out of the running. ESPN was the first to report Apostolopoulos' possible interest, while Sportico first reported Khosla's interest and that Mittal and Grousbeck were putting together a bid.

"There is no news to share about the sale process," a representative for the Paul G. Allen Estate, which is selling the Seahawks, told FOS.

As for how much the sale of the Seahawks will rake in, FOS reported estimates are in the range of $8 billion to $10 billion, or perhaps even more.

Representatives for Allen & Co., the investment bank handling the sale process, declined to comment, along with the NFL and Latham & Watkins, the legal adviser to the Allen Estate. Representatives for Mittal, Grousbeck, Khosla, Boehly and Apostolopoulos did not immediately to requests for comment on the report.

--Field Level Media