Latest / The Sports Hangover Daily / Seahawks Sold for $9.6B | Jul 12, 2026
Transcript
- Welcome to The Sports Hangover Daily, I'm Michael Benatar. Today on the show: Aaron Donald at the Rams facility, the Seahawks’ nine point six billion dollar sale, Derek Carr’s comeback phone calls, and Conor McGregor’s nightmare in Vegas. Plus, Summer League kids putting up grown-man numbers. Let’s go. Aaron Donald was back at the Rams facility, and yeah, I know — it was just a workout. TMZ spotted him there, Pro Football Talk kicked the rumor machine into gear, and nobody has confirmed he's actually coming back. Still, come on. Aaron Donald doesn’t just casually wander into the Rams facility in July like he forgot his sunglasses. This matters because the Rams’ defensive front is not some cute rebuilding project anymore. They already added Myles Garrett. If Donald is even ten percent serious about returning, the Rams go from “interesting NFC team” to “why is Matthew Stafford suddenly allowed to have a defense again?” Donald retired as one of the best defensive players any of us have ever seen. Three Defensive Player of the Year awards. Ten Pro Bowls. A Super Bowl ring. A human car crash in shoulder pads. And the fit is almost too clean. He doesn’t need to play seventy snaps. He doesn’t need to carry a bad defense. Put him next to Garrett in selective pass-rush looks and make quarterbacks solve that math problem. Spoiler: they can’t. The Rams should not beg. They should not leak desperation. But if Donald wants back in, you clear the runway. Because even at thirty-five, Aaron Donald as a part-time destroyer is better than most teams’ best defensive lineman. Around the NFL, the Seahawks are getting sold for a reported nine point six one two billion dollars, with Neeru Khosla expected to serve as controlling owner. That number is stupid. Fun stupid, but stupid. The Seahawks were bought in the nineties for a fraction of that, and now they’re priced like a tech company with a pass rush. The football question is simple: does new ownership get patient, or does it start doing billionaire stuff immediately? Seattle has Mike Macdonald, a young defense, and a roster that still feels one bold move away from becoming annoying in the NFC West. New owners love making statements. Sometimes that means better facilities. Sometimes that means firing people because they want to feel involved. Seahawks fans should be excited. Also maybe keep one eye open. Derek Carr also said multiple teams have reached out about a possible return, but he’d need a “special situation” to unretire. Translation: he’s not coming back to babysit a four-win team and get hit behind a folding-chair offensive line. Carr is waiting for a contender to panic. That’s smart. He’s got over forty thousand career passing yards. He can still run an offense. He’s not prime Drew Brees, but if your starter gets hurt in October, Carr is a hell of a lot better than pretending your third-round rookie is suddenly ready. And the Mike Macdonald, Tom Brady chatter is still floating around. The story is that Macdonald got Super Bowl advice from Brady. People are pointing at the Raiders connection as a conflict-of-interest thing. I get the optics. Brady has ownership ties in Vegas. Macdonald coaches Seattle. Division rivals. Weird? Sure. But also, coaches ask smart football people for advice all the time. If this is the scandal, the NFL has had a very quiet week. Over in the NBA Summer League, Caleb Wilson went nuts for Chicago: thirty-five points, twelve of twenty-one shooting, seven of eleven from three. And the Bulls still lost to Memphis, ninety-seven to ninety-six. That is Summer League in one sentence. You can have the best individual night in the gym and still lose because somebody’s tenth man forgot how to box out. Cameron Boozer had twenty-three, six boards, and four assists for Memphis. That’s the part Grizzlies fans should care about. The kid looked comfortable. Houston beat Denver ninety-seven to eighty-six behind Bruce Thornton’s twenty-seven points, three made threes, and three steals. The Rockets pulled away late, and Thornton looked like a guard who knows exactly how to control a July game. He looked way too calm for Summer League chaos. The Lakers beat the Thunder ninety-six to eighty-four, and Adou Thiero filled the stat sheet: twenty points, four rebounds, four assists, three steals, two blocks. That is the type of Summer League line that gets Lakers Twitter ready to retire somebody’s jersey by lunch. In UFC three twenty-nine, Max Holloway beat Conor McGregor after McGregor suffered a knee injury just one minute and nine seconds into Round one. That’s brutal. Not just as a fight result — as a whole vibe. McGregor’s entire comeback aura depends on danger, noise, and the feeling that something ridiculous might happen. Instead, the fight barely got going. Holloway gets the win, but nobody leaves that feeling satisfied. It’s like ordering a steak and getting a receipt. The Hangover Take: the Seahawks sale is the biggest NFL story of the weekend, and not because of the price tag. Nine point six billion dollars tells you what the league has become. NFL teams are no longer sports franchises. They’re scarce global assets with uniforms. And that changes how owners behave. The next wave of NFL owners is not buying teams to quietly sit upstairs and clap politely. They’re buying control. They’re buying influence. They’re buying the most reliable attention machine in American entertainment. So if I’m a Seahawks fan, I’m not asking, “Will they spend money?” Of course they’ll spend money. I’m asking whether they’ll let football people run football. That’s the difference between becoming the next smart, stable contender and becoming a very expensive content farm. Seattle has the bones of a real team. Don’t billionaire-brain your way into ruining it. That's your hangover. Go hydrate. I'll see you tomorrow.