Daniel Marc Snyder (born November 23, 1964) is an American businessman who formerly owned the Washington Commanders, an American football franchise belonging to the National Football League (NFL). He bought the team, then known as the Washington Redskins, from the estate of former owner Jack Kent Cooke in 1999. In 2023, he sold the franchise to a group led by Josh Harris for $6.05 billion, the highest price ever paid for a sports team.
Snyder's ownership of the team was heavily criticized and is considered one of the worst ownership tenures in NFL history. The Redskins/Commanders saw a severe lack of success under Snyder, with the team only winning two playoff games in 23 seasons. Accusations of an insufferable workplace culture, financial improprieties, corruption, and personal sexual misconduct allegations, would be investigated in the 2020s by the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability.
Early life and education
Snyder was born on November 23, 1964, in Silver Spring, Maryland. The son of Arlette (née Amsellem) and Gerald Snyder, he was raised in a Jewish household. His father was a freelance writer who wrote for United Press International and National Geographic. At age 12, he moved to Henley-on-Thames, a small town near London, where he attended private school. At age 14, he returned to the United States and lived with his grandmother in Queens, New York. A year later, his family moved to Rockville, Maryland, where Snyder graduated from Charles W. Woodward High School.
His first job was at a B. Dalton bookstore in White Flint Mall. By age 20, he had dropped out of the University of Maryland, College Park and was running his own business, leasing jets to fly college students to spring break in Fort Lauderdale and the Caribbean. Snyder claimed to have earned US$1 million running the business out of his parents' bedroom with his friend Joe Craig and several telephone lines.
Snyder courted real estate entrepreneur Mortimer Zuckerman, whose U.S. News & World Report was also interested in the college market and who agreed to finance his push to publish Campus USA, a magazine for college students. Zuckerman and Fred Drasner, co-publisher of Zuckerman's New York Daily News, invested $3 million in Campus USA. The venture did not generate enough paid advertising and was forced to close after two years.
Career
In 1989, Snyder and his sister Michele founded Snyder Communications, an advertising company with seed money from their father. They concentrated on wallboards in doctors' offices and colleges. They combined the advertisements with the distribution of product samples, such as soaps and packages of medicine, to differentiate themselves from their competitors. Snyder continued to expand its activities to different aspects of outsourced marketing. In 1992, the company expanded into telemarketing with a focus on the immigrant market. Revenues rose from $2.7 million in 1991 to $9 million in 1993.
Snyder became the youngest-ever CEO of a New York Stock Exchange listed company at the age of 32 when it underwent an initial public offering in September 1996. His top investors, including media mogul Barry Diller and Robert Strauss, earned significant returns on their initial investment. Mortimer Zuckerman and Fred Drasner, whom Snyder owed $3 million from the failure of his first business venture, were given company stock, which ended up being worth over $500 million. His parents sold their stock in the company for over $60 million.
He continued to expand the company aggressively through a string of acquisitions, such as Arnold Worldwide in 1997. By 1998, the company had over 12,000 employees and $1 billion in annual revenues. In April 2000, Snyder Communications was sold to the French advertising and marketing services group Havas in an all-stock transaction valued at in excess of US$2 billion. Snyder's personal share of the proceeds was estimated to be US$300 million.