SEATTLE — Ever since Don Garber played matchmaker by helping to bring together Adrian Hanauer, Joe Roth, Drew Carey and Paul Allen, the Seattle Sounders have enjoyed a remarkably stable ownership group. Up until this year, the only notable change in the ownership structure was when Hanauer bought a small percentage of Roth’s shares in order to become the majority owner in late 2015.
That all changed on Tuesday when the the Sounders announced that 11 new “families” had joined the ownership group as minority stakeholders, buying out the remainder of Roth’s share. Given the rather unprecedented nature of all this, you probably have a lot of questions.