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Thousands of fans have stuffed the concourse of Capital One Arena to celebrate the 50th anniversary of their beloved hockey franchise. Players past and present are the stars of the show, but Leonsis is the host, shaking hands as he cuts through the crowd in an Alex Ovechkin jersey.

Just seven months ago, he was owner non grata for many fans; his plan <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/12/13/capitals-wizards-move-alexandria-potomac-yard/" target=_blank>to relocate the Washington Capitals and Wizards to Virginia</a> posed an existential threat to major professional sports in D.C. and to Capital One Arena as a downtown anchor.

The deal fell through, and Leonsis and his teams <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/03/27/dc-capitals-wizards-capital-one-arena-alexandria-bowser-leonsis/" target=_blank>are staying put</a>, with a promise from the city to help renovate the 27-year-old building. And Leonsis is as front and center as ever, stopping every few feet to take another selfie and to shake another hand. If people are still angry, they don’t volunteer it, instead wishing him luck on his 25th season as the Capitals’ owner. He doesn’t mind stopping, but he also has to keep moving.

“There’s no stasis. If you’re not growing, you’re shrinking,” he said. “If you’re shrinking, nothing good comes out of it. If you’re not launching new products, if you’re not investing in new things, keeping the spiral and momentum going [up], you start to go this way.”

He twirled his fingers downward and kept talking.

So as he bounces back from the biggest setback he has experienced as an owner, Leonsis is throwing everything he can at his vision for Monumental Sports, which at the moment includes more teams, more visibility, more engagement and, at the nexus, a dazzling renovation plan for the arena that will serve as home base through at least 2050.

“The amount of energy you need to expend to stop that is two times what it takes after you got it going,” he said. “I’m seeing that — we took steps back with the venue and the building. I just want to get through it so we can get back.”

He seems to believe it. But the recent past remains resonant. The dust hasn’t fully settled from the tumultuous 15-week period that rattled the region — exciting some fans in Virginia and deeply upsetting many from D.C. and Maryland, not to mention civic and business leaders who feared losing an important anchor in downtown Washington.

John McDonnell

In a string of interviews, between pledges to move forward, the 67-year-old billionaire railed against prominent media members, bemoaned a Virginia lawmaker, speculated idly about trading fates with an unhoused person and openly discussed potential areas of growth for his company, Monumental Sports &amp; Entertainment, including new sports acquisitions.

Still, he’s certain his sprawling organization is on the right track. After his $2.2 billion Virginia dream died in March, Leonsis struck a deal with D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) and city leaders to renovate Capital One Arena. Pending sign-off by the D.C. Council, the city <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/04/02/dc-council-arena-funds-leonsis-capitals-wizards/" target=_blank>has agreed to chip in $515 million</a> — buying the arena <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/10/20/bowser-capital-one-arena-monumental-leonsis/" target=_blank>for $87.5 million</a> and leasing it back to Monumental — with the hopes of keeping the teams downtown for years to come.

This week — more than six months after an initial term sheet was signed — a complex contract was submitted to the council, and Leonsis hopes construction can start after the Capitals’ and Wizards’ seasons wrap in the spring.

“We’re going to renovate and transform the building and put hundreds of millions of dollars, all for the fans’ benefit, all for the neighborhood — for downtown’s benefit. To me, it should be self-evident, but every day we’re reselling to some constituency,” he said.

“It’ll be worth it,” he added. “The process to get to the starting line, though, is going to be years and years and really harder than it should be.”

On a recent fall morning, Leonsis rode the elevator down to the bowels of Capital One Arena and climbed into the back of a Cadillac Escalade. The Wizards were holding a special practice at Thurgood Marshall Academy, a charter school in Ward 8, which has D.C.’s lowest incomes. Students would watch the team go through a light workout, and Leonsis wanted to attend.

As he zipped through the city, monuments and history looming outside the car’s tinted windows, he tried to explain how he’s processing both the disappointment in the arena he’s not getting and his excitement for the one that will be transformed.

“I’m happy that we’re staying in D.C. It is the right thing for the city. But I have commitments to the players, the fans, the sponsors and our business,” he said. “That’s what I’m nervous about. That’s what will keep me working 20 hours a day.”

Washington — the city and the region — has been his adopted home. Leonsis was born in Brooklyn, and his family moved to Lowell, Mass., when he was young.

“You know some people grow up on third base? We kind of grew up in the on-deck circle,” said Evan Coravos, a childhood friend.

Even then, Leonsis was in a hurry. He skipped kindergarten and later bypassed the eighth grade. He was early into computers and later the internet, and he has spent a professional lifetime trying to root out the next big thing.

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“He sees around the corner better than most people I’ve ever met in business,” said Raul Fernandez, another tech pioneer who has been a Monumental partner since 2000. “He’s an incredible balance of poetic and pragmatic. … Some people can dream, and other people can execute. He can do both. He connects the dots.”

Leonsis long has thought beyond city boundaries, and his own biography and success have roots that stretch across the region. He graduated from Georgetown, he lives in Maryland, and his net worth and profile exploded while he headed up AOL in Virginia.

Since at least 2015, he has discussed publicly Baltimore, Washington and Northern Virginia serving as a singular “super city,” and after the Washington area’s bid to host the 2024 <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/paris-summer-games-2024/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">Olympics</a> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/digger/wp/2015/08/07/washingtons-2024-olympic-bid-in-purgatory/" target=_blank>failed</a>, Leonsis was intent on keeping the region’s business leaders together at the same table, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/digger/wp/2016/12/14/no-olympics-no-problem-washington-ceos-decide-to-rebuild-region-anyway/" target=_blank>helping form the Greater Washington Partnership</a>, a civic and business alliance that operates across local boundaries.

So he was caught off guard when the proposal to relocate across the Potomac River to Alexandria upset so many. He felt he was making prudent a business decision; others took the news personally.

Mario Tama

“I was honestly — still am — taken back that the three miles was, ‘You’re a traitor,’” he said. “But I have to listen to that.”

Leonsis considers all of it home, and he has his hands in many areas that affect the entire region: education, arts, philanthropy — including millions donated to hospitals and his alma mater. His investments run the gamut from film to food, from gaming to gambling. Many are connected and tie back to the core business, which is running an entertainment company that draws customers from across the region — even if the principal owner has been accused of dividing it.

The Virginia plan wasn’t some utopian destination that checked every box. But Potomac Yard did offer a massive piece of land, one that could accommodate an entertainment district spanning 9 million square feet, and — Leonsis hoped — government leaders who would be enthusiastic about accommodating his teams and business. He felt D.C. at the time was offering neither.

When his Virginia plan was unveiled in December, there were supporters, to be sure, but the loudest voices were unsparing in their criticism, many accusing him of being traitorous.

Michael Wilbon, speaking on ESPN’s “Pardon the Interruption,” said Leonsis had turned his back on Washington. Wilbon’s longtime broadcast partner and former Washington Post colleague, Tony Kornheiser, called it “villainy” on his podcast.

“Don’t tell me there’s a lot of money involved, there’s profit involved — there’s money involved where he is now,” Kornheiser said. “If his teams were better, maybe they’d make more money.”

In retrospect, the proposal never had a chance. It didn’t publicly die until March 27, but it was on life support from Day 1.

Even as Monumental representatives expressed confidence in the deal, they knew that Virginia state Sen. L. Louise Lucas (D-Portsmouth), chair of the powerful Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/03/04/virginia-arena-youngkin-lucas-scott/" target=_blank>was an obstacle</a>. Monumental officials and the office of Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) circulated early plans for the Potomac Yard project, but Lucas declined to endorse the deal before the formal announcement in December because the details were too sparse. In fact, she was telling colleagues before the session even began that she was opposed, according to one person close to the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to discuss behind-the-scenes machinations.

Even though Lucas showed no signs of capitulating, Monumental representatives repeatedly and loudly said D.C. officials were too late with their offer to help pay to renovate the downtown arena.

The state’s Senate Finance Committee didn’t see details of the Potomac Yard proposal until the last week of January, just days before “crossover day” in Richmond, when bills that have passed one chamber move over to the other. As committee chair, Lucas is one of Virginia’s most powerful gatekeepers of the state budget. She refused to consider the bill and didn’t even bring it up for a vote.

Lucas wasn’t the only one with reservations. Senate Majority Leader Scott A. Surovell (D-Fairfax) was the lone sponsor of the Senate bill, and even he had signaled that the deal would need to be amended to earn his approval. Similarly, the arena bill approved in the House <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/02/22/virginia-arena-bill-lucas-senate/" target=_blank>was dead on arrival in the Senate</a>. The whip counts indicated that, had Lucas brought it to a vote, it would have failed 12-3 in committee, according to the person familiar with the process and confirmed by Lucas. In the full chamber, it had 12 supporters — but needed 21 to pass.

In the background, there were discussions about how to make the bill more appealing to Lucas and others. At one point, Monumental did make a bold offer, suggesting the bill be expanded to include a second arena in Portsmouth, Lucas’s district. According to the person familiar with the talks, Monumental representatives said they would consider relocating the NBA G League team — the minor league Capital City Go-Go — to Portsmouth and play some WNBA games there if she signed off on the bill.

Lucas confirmed the G League offer, though Monica Dixon, Monumental’s president of external affairs and chief administrative officer, said the Mystics were never included and the G League was mentioned only in “preliminary conversation at the very start of the talks with Virginia and wasn’t an expansion of the bill, and in fact was never a part of the legislative process at all.”

The G League offer didn’t move Lucas — “she thought it was basically a bribe,” the person said — and she was never convinced the arena would pay for itself, as Monumental had suggested. Lucas called it a “Monumental Disaster” and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/04/01/bowser-lucas-arena-leonsis-youngkin/" target=_blank>seemed to revel in deriding the plan</a>.

While some suspected Leonsis was trying to leverage Virginia to get D.C. leaders to engage, others who spoke with him during that time said he was infatuated with the Potomac Yard vision and thought he could get a sweetheart deal in Virginia, a state without a major professional sports team.

At the advice of the governor’s office, Leonsis didn’t reach out to Lucas until the 11th hour. He finally met with her in the first week of March, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/03/10/virginia-arena-leonsis-lucas-youngkin/" target=_blank>a friendly meeting by all accounts</a>. Leonsis called Lucas a “badass” — a compliment she appreciated — and she found him to be pleasant and charming. But according to Lucas, they both knew — or should have known — that the die was cast. Sure enough, hours later, she tweeted a Photoshopped meme of her standing over a grave, the headstone reading “Youngkin and Leonsis’ $5 billion arena.”

“She wants to meet me — ‘Don’t tell the governor, don’t tell anyone, no social media’ — we go down, meet her and then get told it was a great meeting,” Leonsis recalled recently. “‘Give her your personal number so you guys can talk unabashedly, but don’t tell anybody.’ Hour later — the tombstone. I go, how do I process this? What should I do? Do I tweet back? Do I just admire? I mean, that was an OG move, right? So live and learn.”

While many in Richmond said Lucas was an outspoken opponent and wielded her power accordingly, they noted the bill never had the widespread support it needed to reach the governor’s desk. Still, Leonsis feels a single Virginian played an outsize role in spoiling his dream.

“The thing’s not set up the best way. In Virginia, we got pushed away by Louise Lucas,” he said. “And I get it. But is that the way to recruit a $6 billion, three-professional team, 5,000-employee enterprise? It’s shocking to me that at some point someone doesn’t say, ‘Is that good for Virginia?’”

Nick Wass

As the deal was unraveling, Leonsis was back in Washington and had just finished up a meeting downtown. It was a clear, pleasant day, but he was still reeling when his car turned and made its way up New York Avenue.

Those in the car remembered stopping at a traffic light, where they watched a man step into the road, drop his pants and defecate in the middle of the street. Leonsis was stunned, but he chuckled. While his brain started churning about ways the system needs to better support a struggling population, he also was struck by how happy the man seemed. Leonsis flashed him a thumbs-up as his car rolled past.

“I wish I could be that carefree,” remarked Bob Schneider, Leonsis’s chief of staff. They idly discussed what it would be like to trade places with the man.

“I mean, he was not worrying about a thing,” Leonsis later recalled. “His worries and concerns are much different than mine. This guy’s taking a dump outside on a beautiful day, and I’m wondering what it’d be like to change places with him. Can you imagine?”

The moment of levity, of course, did not erase the frustration and disappointment from the preceding days and weeks. The drumbeat from detractors was loud and incessant.

Leonsis prides himself in knowing the names and stories at all levels of his organization. “It’s not just the players,” said Dick Patrick, a longtime Monumental executive and one of Leonsis’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/sports/capitals/longterm/1999/sale/sale13.htm" target=_blank>two original partners</a>. “It’s the trainers and equipment guys, marketing people. He’s a people person. He loves people, and he wants to be loved.”

As he considers any business decision, Leonsis has a pyramid of priorities. Players are at the top, followed by employees, fans and the surrounding community. He felt many people were too hung up on city boundaries, and their criticism stung.

“It was very hard for him,” said Jeff Skoll, the billionaire former eBay executive who <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/29/jeff-skoll-monumental-sports/" target=_blank>joined Monumental’s ownership team</a> in 2022. “I don’t think he ever wanted to leave D.C. He always said: ‘This is my family. These are the people that supported the teams here all these years.’ … He wanted to stay here. He was afraid the city wouldn’t allow him to stay, and he had to make the choice.”

Even now, months later, Leonsis is as certain as ever that the Virginia plan — a mixed-use development entertainment district built around a new arena — would have been a boon to the region.

Alex Brandon

“It hurt me a lot personally,” he said. “When I would meet fans, when I’d meet people in Virginia, that wasn’t the feedback I was getting. In focus groups, that wasn’t the feedback I was getting. But there was from influential [people], from media, from VIPs, there was a deep — [it was] like I fractured relationships with people, and it took me aback. For such a good people person, I really misjudged a lot of that.”

People he had known for years dragged him over the coals, and those wounds remain raw.

“I’m pissed at Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser. I think they’re cheaters,” Leonsis said. “Wilbon was criticizing me for moving 3½ miles — from Phoenix, where he moved 20 years ago.” (Wilbon has a home in Arizona in addition to the D.C. area.)

Leonsis kept hearing, too, that he was a terrible owner and that maybe he had been shielded from criticism in this town for so long because Daniel Snyder, the former NFL team owner <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2023/04/15/dan-snyder-commanders-ownership/" target=_blank>whose unpopularity was unrivaled</a>, had absorbed the bulk of Washington’s fury.

“I hope that’s not the case. I hope it’s not: ‘Now Dan’s gone; you’re the next Dan Snyder.’ That would hurt,” Leonsis said. “Give me an objective reason why anyone should say that.”

While the deal with D.C. certainly has calmed the waters, Leonsis never had intentions of hiding in his office. He hired a New York-based public relations firm. He still talks with reporters. He still reads every fan email he receives. He still mills through the arena concourse and is confident as ever that he’s building something better for players and fans alike.

“You almost have to remind yourself once in a while, no, we’ve actually been pretty good,” he said. “Even the Wizards, as bad as I think we’ve performed, we’re not the worst franchise. We made the playoffs four of the past 10 years. The Caps have made the playoffs, in the past 25 years, the second- or third-most [times] in the league.”

Leonsis loved the Virginia arena drawings, but he spends no time thinking about them these days. There are new renderings now, and even if the process hasn’t been smooth, he can only look forward. “I think I just moved on,” he said. “... Someone said to me, it’s like serial murderers: How do they kill somebody and then continue to function and go to work the next day? I compartmentalize it very quickly.

“There’s nothing more we can do there,” he continued, referring to the Virginia proposal. The renovation “has to become our focus.”

Craig Hudson

In the time it took Monumental and D.C. officials to hammer out the details of an arena contract, Leonsis launched an art gallery. That’s the pace he said he’s accustomed to.

Leonsis had met Harry Benson, the celebrated photographer, about a decade ago in Florida, where Leonsis has a home. He was enamored with Benson’s stories about photographing the Beatles, Muhammad Ali, John F. Kennedy and others. In May, he approached Benson about hosting an exhibition of his Washington-centric work. It came together quickly — leasing space next to the arena, curating photos over Zoom calls — and earlier this week, just days before the Wizards were set to tip off a new season, Leonsis opened it to the public.

“When you’re an entrepreneur, the way I grew up, you can envision something and pretty much make it happen,” he explained.

He explains this in the context of the downtown arena and the drawn-out negotiations, which have never been on his preferred timeline. The sides spent more than six months working on compromises, big and small, and the final contract that the city council will consider is markedly different from the initial term sheet.

“They’re not entrepreneurial. Their metric of success is different, and I’ve had to learn that’s not a wrong thing or a bad thing,” he said as the final terms were being hammered out. “ … We have the council, the AG, the CFO, a lot of people to negotiate who you’d think would all say, ‘We’re going to be heroes — let’s get this deal done.’ They’re not operating out of any bad intent. It’s just trying to get everyone aligned.”

“It’s been harder than it should,” he said.

Photo by Ralph Alswang.

Leonsis sees Monumental growing in several directions. He <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/23/ted-leonsis-washington-nationals-nbc-sports-washington/" target=_blank>purchased NBC Sports Washington</a> in 2022, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2023/06/21/monumental-sports-network-rachel-nichols/" target=_blank>renamed it</a> Monumental Sports Network last year and now sees it as a central cog. Monumental isn’t a sports management company as much as a broad platform that annually reaches millions of people in the region.

But that’s not enough. He lately has been figuring out ways to invest more in women’s sports, maybe a professional volleyball team or a women’s hockey team. He recently met with executives from the IX, a news outlet focused on women’s sports, to better understand the opportunities and growth potential.

“The question is should we do it under the Monumental umbrella or spin it out and make a separate company,” he said. “We want to innovate. Sure, we’ve been doing this for 25 years, but I’m worried about the next 25.”

He has floated professional soccer as an area of interest and had explored buying the Baltimore Orioles before they <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2024/03/27/orioles-david-rubenstein-owner/" target=_blank>were sold to David Rubenstein</a> this year. But the biggest fish is the Washington Nationals, who would provide year-round programming for his network and make him unique among pro sports owners.

“If you have a really, really successful business — a billion-dollar business — you can make the investments and you choose the priorities,” he said. “My priority would be, we will never lose a great player for money. We have those resources. Look at who the Nationals have lost — MVP-quality players, in their prime, young. I understand why — they’re rebuilding the team, and they’ll be really good soon. But that hurts the fans. … If we owned the Nationals, we would have the resources to not have that happen, if that’s what the GM says.”

The Lerner family said in February that it <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2024/02/19/nationals-sale-lerner-family/" target=_blank>was no longer looking to sell the team</a>. But Leonsis has made it known that he’s interested when the time is right. Mark Lerner is one of Monumental’s 19 minority partners, and Leonsis has worked with the family for years.

“I have a lot of respect for that family,” he said. “I put myself in their shoes: Do they want to sell? When do they want to sell? How do they want to sell? I can’t make them. So I’m being very respectful to them. That’s the right way to do it.

“We’re the most likely buyers. But it might not work.”

Barely a week before the NBA season was set to start, Leonsis was again awake early, firing off emails and sharing things he had read. He had been up late the night before — the Capitals posted their first win of the season, and he didn’t stop working until 12:30 a.m. Five to six hours of sleep is his norm.

The day started with a doctor visit. His blood pressure was 112/64 — “And this is my most stressful time of the year,” he remarked. “Calm. … Zen.” (The doctor did tell him to go to bed earlier and diagnosed him with a case of selective hearing, which might have been a joke.)

He likens most days to a scene from a Jackie Chan movie with a protagonist navigating a dark alley and taking on foes that perpetually pop out of every corner with a flurry of kicks and chops.

“His motor is running all the time,” said Dixon, the Monumental executive. “The way that energy manifests is that we wake up at 5, 6 in the morning to a handful of emails every single day.”

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Rick Maese is a sports features writer for The Washington Post. He has written about the NFL since joining The Post in 2009, including three seasons as beat writer for the Washington Redskins.

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Ted Leonsis is trying to win back Washington after failed arena deal

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Stung by the backlash, Ted Leonsis is trying to win back Washington

The Monumental Sports & Entertainment CEO says he wants to unite the region, but a failed arena deal in Virginia turned him into a polarizing figure.