The NFL's prospective controlling owner of the Seattle Seahawks has never worked in professional sports.

Neeru Khosla, co-founder of the CK-12 Foundation and an education nonprofit executive married to billionaire venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, was identified as the prospective controlling owner in a league memo sent to all 32 teams on Sunday, July 12, according to the Seattle Times.

If owners approve the record $9.612 billion sale at a special meeting scheduled for Wednesday, August 26, she will represent the franchise before the NFL while the broader Khosla family operates the ownership group together.

"There's nothing to suggest she's had a sports background or interest before," Gregg Bell, the Seahawks beat writer for Tacoma's News Tribune, told KING 5 on Monday, July 13.

"This is the first Super Bowl champion to be sold within months of winning it all. This is an unprecedented sale."

Bell noted that Khosla's calling was rooted in watching her own children navigate the American education system, not in athletics.

Born in India, Neeru Khosla met Vinod as a teenager. The couple immigrated to the United States in 1976. She earned a master's degree in molecular biology from San Jose State University and joined a Stanford lab studying gene expression, but left that work over radioactivity concerns during her first pregnancy.

She returned to Stanford for a master's in education, and in 2007 co-founded CK-12, a nonprofit that develops free digital textbooks and educational resources for K-12 students. She remains its executive director.

The NFL memo described her as "an educator and entrepreneur."

Son Neal Khosla is expected to hold a "significant leadership role" in the ownership group, according to the same memo. He co-founded Curai Health, an AI-driven virtual healthcare company based in Palo Alto.

King County Councilmember Pete von Reichbauer, who helped broker the 1997 sale of the Seahawks to Paul Allen, endorsed the purchase in a KING 5 interview after contacting three people through Stanford University who have worked with the family.

Von Reichbauer said the Khoslas have lived in the same California home since 1986 and spend much of each month together, details he suggested show they will approach ownership as a family unit.

"Anybody who has dealt with them that I've talked with at Stanford knows that they are winners," von Reichbauer told KING 5.

Before the sale can close, the family must divest a 3.1% stake in the San Francisco 49ers purchased in 2025. The ownership vote requires approval from at least 24 of 32 NFL owners.

The timeline is tight. The August 26 vote falls exactly two weeks before the Seahawks open the 2026 season against the New England Patriots at Lumen Field on Wednesday, September 9. Coach Mike Macdonald is under contract through 2029 and general manager John Schneider through 2031.