For most sports fans, the rule is simple: You pick a favorite team, for whatever reason, and that's your team for life. Sometimes, because of where you were born or who your mom or dad or grandparents rooted for, you get stuck with decades of heartache. Those are the breaks.

Washington Commanders fans were let out of that contract. It became impossible to root for that franchise as Dan Snyder drove it into the ground and then ran over the carcass with a never-ending run of embarrassing headlines.

An era of humiliation is over. Text your buddy who is a Commanders fan and congratulate him or her. Find one on social media and share in the good vibes. It's finally safe for them to come back because Snyder has reportedly agreed in principle to sell the team.

The NFL in Washington was reborn Thursday. That's worth celebrating.

Dan Snyder drove fans away

There have been bad owners in all sports through the years, but the Snyder experience was unique.

The endless PR fiascos would have been at least somewhat bearable if the Commanders were winning. But under Snyder's watch they lost and lost and lost again. Snyder bought the team in 1999. From the end of that season through last season, Washington won one playoff game. The Commanders didn't win any playoff games in Snyder's final 17 seasons. Then the bloopers became sinister, whether it was sexual misconduct allegations or not returning season-ticket deposits. The long fight over the team's old nickname didn't help either.

Fans who rooted for the team through the glory years of Joe Theismann, Doug Williams and Mark Rypien just gave up. Decades of history and memories of attending games with friends or family were not enough to keep them around. If you know a Commanders fan, it's likely you listened to them renounce their fandom. If you don't know a Commanders fan, you could have looked at their many empty seats for home games and gotten that message. Nobody blamed them. It became a chore to root for Snyder's franchise. Fans who would happily tell the stories about how old RFK Stadium shook for Cowboys games had to walk away until an ownership change was made. Given how important football is to the fabric of many of our lives, it was a tough step. It just had to be done.

On Thursday, Commanders fans could finally feel it was OK to root for their favorite team again. That tells you how bad Snyder was as a team owner.

Washington starts a long road back

NFL team owners couldn't have been happy that one of their cornerstone franchises fell into such decay. Even if you take the cynical view that their main focus was on all those empty seats at FedEx Field costing them money — the money that Snyder was allegedly declaring, anyway — it was startling. Some teams have season-ticket waiting lists, and Washington used to be one of those teams. It reached a point a few years ago in which that list had no names left on it. If you wanted season tickets all you had to do was call.

Washington's NFL franchise had a ton of history, a prime piece of real estate and one of the best fan bases in the league. And it became an absolute embarrassment under Snyder. Fans don't just quit rooting for their teams. But it happened for many Commanders fans.

In 2022, Washington's attendance was 85.9% of capacity. No other team was lower than 92.7%. You might think that you have it bad because your favorite baseball team's owner won't spend money or you hate rooting for an NBA team whose owner can't do anything right, but it's nothing like what Commanders fans endured the past couple decades. Fans started boycotting the team, and rightfully so.

Getting all those Commanders fans back won't be as easy as the NFL approving the sale to Josh Harris' group. There's work to be done after years of horrendous play on the field and even worse behavior off it. A new stadium is an absolute must, and maybe a more personable owner can help get that done. But Commanders fans can finally be proud to represent their team again. They might even buy some of the new merchandise, because they probably gave up on the team before the rebrand in 2022.

Thursday is a milestone for many Commanders fans of all ages. Welcome back to rooting for your favorite team.

(Disclosure: Josh Harris is a co-founder of Apollo Global Management, which owns Yahoo, Inc. He left the private equity firm in 2022.)