The Washington Nationals could be the latest American sports franchise to be put up for sale. According to The Washington Post, the Lerner family, which owns the ballclub, is strongly considering the idea of selling the Nationals, and has hired an investment bank to research potential buyers and investors. Despite that step, managing principal owner Mark Lerner insists that this is merely an “exploratory process.”

The Lerner family purchased the Nationals in 2006 for a reported $450 million. The club had been moved by MLB from Montreal to Washington D.C. in 2005, retiring the Expos name and rebranding as the Nationals. The Lerner's managed to win the bid for the club ahead of several other ownership groups.

Back in 2018, Mark Lerner adamantly declared the family would never sell the Nationals.

“We will never sell the Nationals,” Mark Lerner told The Washington Post in 2018. “That’s what we’ve worked to get all those years. We think we do a pretty good job of it. There’s no intention of this family — certainly while I’m alive and my sisters and brothers-in-law are alive — nobody’s going to sell this team.”

That stance seems to have changed just a few years later, as the family is exploring options to potentially offload the organization. Nationals' spokesperson Jennifer Giglio claimed the process of the sale would not have an impact on the everyday baseball decisions made by the organization. That is especially significant given the massive contract extension looming for superstar Juan Soto, arguably the most valuable player in all of baseball.