Jacksonville Jaguars owner Wayne Weaver said on Tuesday he is selling the National Football League team to Pakistani-born businessman Shahid Khan. Weaver said that he signed the deal on Tuesday morning after running it past NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, aware that the league's finance committee must review the sale and the full ownership board must vote to approve the sale.
"I told him I wouldn't sign the deal until commissioner Goodell approved it," said Weaver. "This was not about money. This was about continuing the legacy that we have started." Financial details of the sale were not revealed but Forbes magazine reported the deal to be worth $760 million. Shahid Khan, 61, plans to purchase a home in Jacksonville and guide the team's operations from there.
"Wayne's legacy will be lasting, and I will always be grateful for Wayne's trust and confidence in my commitment to the Jaguars, the NFL and the people of the Jacksonville community," Khan said in a statement. "I will be fully committed to delivering Jacksonville its first Super Bowl championship. This is a franchise with tons of potential, playing in a community that is passionate about football and loves to win." Weaver, who founded the Jaguars as an expansion team in 1995, said he expects the deal will be approved in early January and that Khan will keep the team in Jacksonville, although no such assurance was written into the contract.
"It's hard to write something to say you are going to force somebody to keep something here," Weaver said. "You have to trust individuals' integrity. I've no doubt Shahid will do what he says he's going to do. Khan, who was born in Pakistan in 1950 and moved to the United States at age 16, worked in a small auto parts garage while earning an engineering degree at the University of Illinois, graduating in 1971.
Khan began working for Flex-N-Gate Corporation of Urbana, Illinois in 1970 and bought the firm 10 years later, turning it into a major make of bumpers for trucks and utility vehicles built in North America plus Spain and Argentina with $3 billion in annual sales.
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