Josh Harris: the lowdown from a Crystal Palace FC fan

For the Washington Commanders, it is likely that ownership of the franchise will switch hands in 2023.

One of the early names to have cropped up is Josh Harris who is the principal owner and managing partner of the New Jersey Devils of the National Hockey League and the Philadelphia 76ers of the National Basketball Association.

Interestingly, Harris is also an 18% shareholder in South East London Premier League team, Crystal Palace FC.

Given UKHTTC is based in South London there was the opportunity to get some feedback from a big Palace and Green Bay Packers fan Russell Levy.

Russell, Harris acquired his minority stake shares with David Blitzer in 2015. What has been the general feeling of their involvement with Crystal Palace FC?

The backdrop of Harris and Blitzer's involvement is quite a significant part of the story.

Palace were basically owned by a couple of relatively successful local businessmen, with current chairman Steve Parish being joint owner. They're relatively well off, but not when it comes to premier league ownership.

The club was looking around for investment, when Harris and Blitzer came to the rescue. They were hardly visible at the club, but their investment was more than welcome. I include Blitzer as I'm pretty sure that any bid for Washington by Harris will involve Blitzer.

Lately, it seems Palace supporters are maybe lamenting a lack of investment on the playing side of the club. Is that fair and to what extent are Harris and Blitzer to ‘blame’?

The lack of investment on the playing front is a bit of a worry, but who controls the purse strings is opaque at best.

My understanding is that H&B invested 100m into the club, and that money was ring-fenced for desperately needed stadium development. The stadium development still hasn't begun, so I don't know if their money is still sitting there.

Just to confuse things a little further, a 3rd American investor by the name of John Textor has also thrown some money in, and as far as I know, it's his money which has been used for player purchases.

As a lifelong fan of Crystal Palace FC, have you heard anything at Board level to determine whether Harris is am effective owner (albeit part-owner in this case)?

H&B both have their fingers in multiple very successful businesses, and are quite evidently very smart and shrewd. Our chairman, Steve Parish, is a lifelong Palace fan, and has the clubs best interests at heart. If he thinks H&B are good eggs, I trust his judgement.

It seems Harris has been linked with both Manchester United and, until they were sold to Todd Boehly, to Chelsea. It seems his involvement in Palace might be dwindling?

Crystal Palace FC fans are very aware of H&B bidding for Chelsea, and yes, there is worry around theirs, and Textors, potential withdrawal from the club.

They come at it from a purely business point of view, and have no emotional investment in the club. I don't see why they'd be any different with Washington. Given that H&B already own both an NHL and NBA franchise, an NFL team would complete the set quite nicely.

For a second, forget you are a Green Bay fan and be a Commander. If Harris did buy the Washington, do you feel he might have landed the size of Sports franchise that he truly coverts and would be in it for the long haul?

That's a tough one to answer, but I suspect they'd be quite hands off owners as they both live in London where their investment firm (Apollo Asset Management) is based. I'm sure they'd stick around as long as they were sitting on an appreciating asset.

So they may well be in it for the long haul, but that would rely on the continued increasing popularity of the NFL.