Report: Reynolds group bows out of Sens bidding

Ryan Reynolds will not be part of the new ownership of the Ottawa Senators.

Postmedia's Bruce Garrioch confirms the reporting of ESPN's Emily Kaplan that Reynolds's bid, as part of the Remington Group, will not be moving forward.

Non-binding offers for the team have a May 15 deadline.

Garrioch notes that the group asked for a window to "negotiate a deal with the [National Capital Commission] and the city" over the land, but the team's board of directors and the Galatioto Sports Partners, the group hired by the team to help facilitate the sale, rejected the exclusivity request.

Reynolds, who co-owns fifth-tier Welsh football side Wrexham with It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia star Rob McElhenney, confirmed his interest in the Senators in a November appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.

"I am trying to [buy the team]; it's very expensive, so I need a partner with really deep pockets," Reynolds said to Fallon. "It's called a consortium, when you form a group to buy an entity, and it's such a fancy way of saying, 'I need a sugar mommy or a sugar daddy,' and if that doesn't happen, I'll buy a U.S. senator, which everyone can afford."

The Vancouver-born Reynolds met with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman in December.

The Remington Group is a Markham, Ont.-based real estate consortium.

Sportico's most recent valuation of the Senators was at $655 million (USD), but the initial Remington bid was believed to have been over $1 billion.

Other bids, including those with Snoop Dogg and The Weeknd as investors, are expected to move forward.

Longtime Senators owner Eugene Melnyk died in March of 2022 at the age of 62. His estate confirmed plans to sell the team last fall.