(FORTUNE Magazine) – By the time you read this, there's a good chance the Washington Redskins will have been sold. The price tag? Well, if the pre-sale scuttle is to be believed, it should be way north of $700 million. That would make it the highest price paid for any sports franchise in the history of humankind (barring Rupert Murdoch's pending $1 billion bid for the Manchester United soccer team). And to that I say, right on!

Insiders tell me that selling the Skins has been a slam-dunk (to mix metaphors). Meaning, there are lots of bidders, flush with bigtime, bull-market buckaroos. For Paul Taubman, head of Morgan Stanley's media and telecom M&A group, who is orchestrating the deal, this isn't in the same league as, say, a $30 billion telco blockbuster, but it still makes for a nice high-profile piece of business. Particularly since Morgan has been going toe to toe with Goldman Sachs peddling sports franchises. With the Redskins deal the edge goes to Morgan Stanley, as the Skins' price tag dwarfs Goldman's recent $530 million sale of the Cleveland Browns. Never mind Taubman's $250 million Texas Rangers deal, and Goldman's sale of the L.A. Dodgers to Rupert Murdoch for $311 million.

That's all chicken feed stacked up against the Redskins transaction. Which is why some spoilsports are saying the numbers don't add up. The Redskins--lame as they have been lately--are said to generate about $50 million in annual cash flow (before interest and taxes). So the expected sale price is around 15 times cash flow. That would be a steep multiple for Yahoo, the doubters say, never mind a lousy football team!

My take on this? Who cares! The bigger the better, I say! Hey, we're talking sports teams here! Throw your HP12-C to the winds! It's all part of a grand tradition in this country: Guy has a great idea. He gets really, really rich. Then he goes out and redistributes his wealth buying a sports franchise. Nothing wrong with that.

Trouble is, though, sometimes these big dogs delude themselves. I remember talking once to Wayne Huizenga, who told me: "We really thought we could rationalize the Marlins and run it like a business." I started laughing and waited for Wayne to join me. He didn't. Anyway, here's a look at some of the guys who've reportedly expressed interest in or made bids on the Redskins. It's a veritable directory of upwardly mobile American machismo:

--Peter Angelos, strongman, plaintiffs attorney, and owner of the Baltimore Orioles.

--Ted Forstmann of Forstmann Little and Barbarians at the Gate fame.

--Chuck Dolan, CEO of Cablevision, who owns the Knicks and the (lacking in power) Rangers, and John McMullen, crusty owner of the New Joisey Devils.

--David Bonderman, the Texas buyout king, along with Gerald Ford (not that one!), Ronald Perelman's S&L wizard. (Texans owning the Redskins?!? Sacrilege!!!)

--Howard Milstein, New York real estate mogul, and Daniel Snyder, the 34-year-old head of Snyder Communications, an upstart marketing and advertising conglomerate. These guys tried to highball the process with an all-cash ultimatum bid.

--How about Sam Grossman, the Phoenix real estate heavy--he co-owns the Arizona Biltmore. Grossman has legendary Redskins coach Joe Gibbs in his group.

Further down the food chain, some even more interesting characters: like Jerry Wolman, former owner of the Philadelphia Eagles, a much loved character in Washington since he traded Sonny Jurgensen from the Eagles to the Skins! Wolman is partnering with a guy named "Ziggy" Chelec. Don't forget John Kent Cooke, the underfunded son of late Redskins owner Jack Kent Cooke. And the Scotti brothers, Tony and brother Ben, who played for the team from 1959 through 1961. The Scottis created and later sold Baywatch! Cool!

As we went to press, the bidding was still on. So good luck and a high five to all! To the winner I say: Have fun, and try not to squander too much of your money. If that's all you expect, you'll do just fine.

FIRSTPLUS' NEGATIVES

Does a management track record matter? Many on Wall Street think so, including me. Take Dan Phillips, CEO of troubled FirstPlus Financial. FirstPlus makes second-mortgage loans to consumers saddled with high-coupon credit-card debt, allowing them to roll outstanding debts into FirstPlus' lower-rate loans. For a while, FirstPlus was a hot ticket. Last spring it traded for more than $50. Then FP plunged along with other financial stocks, but instead of bouncing back like the others this fall, it kept dropping, all the way to $2. What happened? Because FirstPlus recognized revenue long before it received the actual proceeds, the company was vulnerable to market turbulence. Not surprisingly, it ran out of cash during the recent credit-market squeeze. So what about management's track record? Well, it seems Mr. Phillips, who detractors say leads a high-end lifestyle, was previously a senior exec at three other companies that ran into trouble: Granite Home Loans, American Equities Financial, and Linco. See a trend?