Dolphins owner Stephen Ross recently said he was offered close to $15 billion for the team.

Coincidentally, I recently received an offer close to $15 billion for PFT.

It’s easy. Anyone can say anything about any offer they did, or didn’t, get, for anything. The question is whether it’s true.

One source with direct knowledge of the value of teams doesn’t buy that someone wanted to buy the Dolphins for that much money. (The most recent team that changed hands was the Commanders, at just over $6 billion.) The more realistic view is that someone like Ken Griffin likely offered Ross something in the range of $10 billion to $11 billion for the team and the stadium. If the Miami F1 race is included, another $1.5 billion to $2.5 billion could be added to that. (An employee of Griffin’s company, Citadel, advises PFT that Griffin has not made any offers or attempts to purchase the Dolphins since 2023.)

The broader point is this: Ross can do whatever he wants with the team he owns. He bought it. It’s his. He was required to pass no test to buy the team. He simply had to show up with the biggest bag of cash.

If he wants (and if the estate taxes can be satisfied without selling the team), Ross can keep it in the family. He can appoint whoever he wants to run it. And that person — currently, his son-in-law Daniel Sillman — will be required to pass no test to own and operate the team.

That’s true of every NFL franchise. The fans are stuck with the owner. As 49ers owner Jed York once said, owners can’t be fired.

Plenty of the bad teams stay bad for a reason. The dysfunction flows from the top. The cycle of G.M. and coach firings and hirings masks the reality that the owners can’t be fired or hired.

Ultimately, it’s the luck of the draw for the fans. And, unfortunately, they’re stuck. They don’t pick their favorite teams based on quality of ownership. Most don’t (and can’t, even if they want) abandon existing loyalties. They just have to wait for ownership to either figure it out, change their ways, or accept an offer they won’t refuse.

That said, there’s no guarantee that whoever offered Ross close to $15 billion (if it happened) will do any better with a team that hasn’t won a playoff game under his stewardship. Because there’s no test for the next owner, either. And there’s no device for forcing any owner out based solely on owning a team that never seriously contends.

Through it all, Ross and all other owners keep making more money. And the values of their teams keep going up and up. And up.