Mitch Morgan, Main Line-based entrepreneur and Temple board chairman, among investors in Josh Harris’ bid for Washington Commanders

The group that plans to buy the NFL’s Washington Commanders for $6.05 billion, led by private-equity billionaire, Penn grad and Sixers co-owner Josh Harris, includes a far-ranging selection of the rich and famous: former Google boss Eric Schmidt, NBA star Magic Johnson, Colombian beer baron and banker Alejandro Santo Domingo, and Philadelphia’s own Mitch Morgan.

His company, Morgan Properties, which ranks itself as one of the three largest U.S. apartment landlords, “has a large presence in the Maryland-DC Corridor and we’ve seen first hand how impactful sports can be in building community,” Mitchell told The Inquirer in a statement earlier this month. ”We are also diehard sports fanatics, and look forward to bringing our passion for sports to this iconic franchise.

“If approved by the NFL, we are confident Josh will bring this franchise to new heights.”

» READ MORE: Georges Niang’s final Inquirer diary dives inside Sixers’ disappointing finish, free agency

Morgan Properties, based in King of Prussia, owns 300 largely working-class and middle-class apartment complexes across 15 states, often buying developments in need of an upgrade. During the last recession, he bought properties that had been part of the Kushner family’s New Jersey real estate empire, from the then-troubled AIG Group of insurance companies, with an assist from the late Sen. Arlen Specter, R./D., Pa.

Morgan has spent years grooming his sons, Jonathan and Jason, to succeed him in that business.

A fundraiser for GOP national candidates including George W. Bush, John McCain and Mitt Romney, whom he hosted at his Gladwyne home, Morgan is also a longtime donor to Israeli causes and to Temple University, which named its high-rise dorm for him in 2012, during a period of expansion and hope for the North Philadelphia-based university.

Before buying his first apartments with borrowed money in 1985, Morgan says he sold shoes at his father’s nearby store to pay his way through Temple, graduating with a bachelor’s in accounting in 1976 and earning his law degree at Temple’s law school four years later.

As Temple’s board chairman since 2019, Morgan has faced increasing challenges, including last winter’s painful strike by graduate students, and a faculty vote of no confidence in April, a month after Morgan told trustees the school faced “an unprecedented confluence of serious challenges” including declining enrollment, and crime around the North Philadelphia campus. Days later, president Jason Wingard resigned.