Editor’s note: The original March 2023 version of this article was lost. The Lee Daily Register rebuilt it in October 2026 from the sources cited below, and added what happened afterward. The original version called Apostolopoulos a Harvard graduate, credited him with a Fordham degree and gave a personal net worth figure attributed to Canadian Business. We could not support any of those claims, and Front Office Sports later reported that he never graduated from Harvard. His personal net worth has not been made public, and this article does not estimate it.
A Toronto real estate executive has put a formal offer on the table for the Washington Commanders. Steve Apostolopoulos has submitted a bid for the NFL team, and so has a group led by Josh Harris and Mitchell Rales, The Associated Press reported Tuesday.
ESPN reported that both offers matched owner Dan Snyder’s $6 billion asking price, according to the AP. Any sale needs the approval of three-quarters of NFL owners. Snyder had not accepted an offer when the league’s finance committee met Monday.
A late entry into the race
Apostolopoulos joined the process only last week. On March 22, a source told the AP that the league had approved him to bid, as it had approved groups led by Harris and Houston Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta, FOX 5 DC reported in carrying that AP story. ESPN was first to report his interest. Forbes values the franchise at $5.6 billion, and a sale could set a record for a North American professional sports team, the AP noted.
The Washington Post reported that Apostolopoulos had toured the team’s headquarters in Ashburn, Virginia, and its stadium in Landover, Maryland, Front Office Sports noted. Harris, who owns the Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Devils, visited the facilities in early February.
The family behind Triple Group
Apostolopoulos is managing partner of Triple Group of Companies, a Toronto real estate company founded by his father, Andreas Apostolopoulos. The AP describes him as a Toronto native who founded a private equity venture firm.
His father drew wide attention in 2009, when his Toronto company, Triple Properties, bought the Pontiac Silverdome in Michigan at auction for $583,000. The stadium, a former home of the Detroit Lions, had cost $55.7 million to build in 1975, The Globe and Mail reported at the time. Andreas Apostolopoulos died in 2021 at age 69, Front Office Sports has reported.
So what is he worth?
That number is not public. Front Office Sports, citing a Globe and Mail story about his father’s death in 2021, put the family’s estimated wealth at $3.9 billion. That is a family estimate, not a figure for Steve Apostolopoulos himself. The Lee Daily Register found no Forbes billionaire profile for him or his family.
What happened next
Two days after this article first ran, on March 31, 2023, Front Office Sports reported that Apostolopoulos had never been enrolled as a full-time student at Harvard and had not graduated, even though early coverage, including the AP’s, said he attended the school. Bloomberg corrected a story that had called him a Harvard graduate. FOS said it could not get a clear picture of his net worth, and noted that NFL rules require $1.8 billion in cash for a $6 billion bid. In that article, it described the family’s wealth at the time of his father’s death as about $3 billion in U.S. currency.
Snyder went with Harris. The two sides reportedly reached an agreement in principle in April and signed a purchase and sale agreement in May at $6.05 billion, CBS Sports reported. On July 20, 2023, NFL owners unanimously approved the sale to the Harris group, which includes Magic Johnson, David Blitzer and Rales. Just before the vote, the league announced that Snyder would pay a $60 million fine, the AP reported.
Apostolopoulos then turned to hockey. He was believed to have made the highest offer for the NHL’s Ottawa Senators, at more than $1 billion, as part of a group led by Windsor developer Rocco Tullio. He withdrew in June 2023 after growing frustrated with the length of the process, TSN reported, citing Postmedia’s Bruce Garrioch.
