NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Susie Adams Smith is looking to sell her third of KSA Industries. If she does, the Tennesse Titans, founded as the Houston Oilers in 1960, will not be fully owned by Bud Adams or his family for the first time.
But as Strunk emphasized in her statement, the sold piece will be a "fractional indirect" one.
Twenty-four NFL owners have to approve of any new owner (of even one percent) of a franchise or the company that owns a franchise.
A third of KSA Industies could be worth around $1.116 billion. And for NFL owners to approve the purchase, they are going to want what they view as ownership compliance issues for the team straightened out.
Those issues resulted in a $250,000 fine of the franchise by the league in 2016.
Strunk (who owns a third) and Kenneth Adams (whose family owns a third) have an agreement that Strunk is controlling owner, effectively putting her in control of 66 percent of the team.
A new owner or owners who combined to hold the other 33 percent wouldn't have any control.
The league could easily prompt a new member of the ownership group to agree to one of a couple options that would clean up the NFL's issue.
And that would end any lingering concern the league has.
The NFL can solve its own problem, one the Titans don't agree exists, by attaching such a condition to the approval of a purchase.
It's what they should do, and it would put an end to what they see as a problem and the Titans see as a non-issue.
The safe bet here is that a purchase, if it happens, would clean up the ownership issues rather than further complicating them.
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