Most female owners inherit a team from a father, husband or brother. Now some are buying their way into football. The Titans’ titan goes deep on what it all means for the league.
Before the Tennessee Titans kicked off their NFL season with a home game against the New York Giants on September 11, team owner Amy Adams Strunk spent nearly two hours with tailgaters outside Nashville’s Nissan Stadium. “Omigod, it’s her,” one young woman shouted, before asking for the requisite photos.
The fans, Adams Strunk says, are her favorite part of owning the team, which her late father Bud Adams founded (as the Houston Oilers in 1960) and of which she has been the controlling shareholder since 2015. “Our fans, to me, are not a statistic,” she says. “I’m going to be the owner that comes up to you and thanks you.”
At 66, Adams Strunk is worth $1.6 billion from her 50% stake in the Titans and is one of a growing number of women who own NFL teams: 18 of the league’s 32 franchises are at least partially female-owned, with 10 listing women as majority owners or co-owners. Most inherited teams from their fathers, brothers or husbands—or, like the Buffalo Bills’ Kim Pegula and the Cleveland Browns’ Dee Haslam, bought into them with their husbands.
But there are signs of change—this summer, Ariel Investments’ Mellody Hobson bought a 5.5% stake in the Denver Broncos for $245 million as part of the Waltons’ ownership group that also brought in Carrie Walton Penner, granddaughter of Walmart founder Sam Walton, with a 30% stake.
“Fifty percent of our fans are women,” says Adams Strunk, who is known as “Mom” to the Titans’ faithful. “Even though we’ve never played the game, that doesn’t mean we don’t know the game. And we have some unique perspectives on reaching women that we can bring to the table.”
While some female owners who inherited NFL teams are hands-off, Adams Strunk not only runs the Titans but has also delivered a stunning turnaround. Since 2016, the squad has had six winning seasons. More important, she helped bring the NFL draft to Nashville three years ago and has high hopes for the city to host a Super Bowl.
Sign Here Please: Young Amy Adams Strunk (center) gets an autograph from Heisman Trophy winner and Houston Oilers halfback Billy Cannon.
Courtesy of the Tennessee Titans
It’s a vision her father could not have foreseen. Bud Adams, who died in 2013 at age 90, was a legend in professional football. A member of the Cherokee nation who made his fortune in oil, he was instrumental in founding the American Football League and started the Oilers for just $25,000. In 1997, when Houston wouldn’t pony up cash to replace the aging Astrodome, he relocated the team to Nashville and its new 69,000-seat stadium.
“It was a game-changing moment for this city,” recalls Butch Spyridon, CEO of the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp. “It shocked the entire sports world, and Nashville started to believe in itself a little more.”
But Bud Adams’ death also led to a leadership struggle for the Titans as the team’s losses piled up. Its ownership was split between his two daughters, Adams Strunk and Susie Adams Smith, and the wife and children of their brother, Kenneth Adams III, who died of suicide at 29 in 1987.
After a family scrum—which saw the ousting of her brother-in-law as CEO—Adams Strunk and her nephews wrested control of the team in 2015. “It was a hard decision,” she says, “but my dad’s legacy was very important to me and the boys.”
Adams Strunk had grown up in football, but her father had never wanted his daughters working for the team. She had spent time as owner of a few of the family’s car dealerships and oil interests, and raising horses (she still has a few dozen on the family ranch in Texas, along with plenty of rescue dogs). “I never thought—ever—that I would be running the football team,” she says.
After she took over the Titans, she worked closely with her nephew, Kenneth Adams IV, who had worked for the team under her father since 2007, as well as with Steve Underwood, who she brought back from retirement as the team’s top executive. Kenneth Adams, who is 38 and a Titans board member, says that having his aunt and other female owners running NFL teams makes a difference: “I think it’s good for the NFL and we need it. It was a long time coming.”
Viva Nashvegas: Adams Strunk helped bring the NFL Draft to Nashville, where it drew a record crowd of 600,000, in 2019.
Frederick Breedon/Getty Images
Adams Strunk brought in a new general manager, Jon Robinson, who was blunt about the team’s problems on the field, and spent money on new facilities (including a new indoor training center) and new uniforms. “When you know you need to fix something you want someone telling you the brutal honest truth,” Adams Strunk says. “Nothing is going to get solved if you don’t know what needs to be done.”
The willingness to spend money differentiated Adams Strunk from her frugal father. And while she could be tough when fixing problems, Jevon Kearse, the Titans’ former defensive end, says it is her warmth that makes her a different kind of owner. “She’s one of the first people to come up and give me a hug,” he says. “Some of the owners come around for the money. She gives it a little bit more love.”
And all of that love has paid off. The value of the Titans’ has more than doubled since 2015, to $3.5 billion from $1.5 billion, as revenue reached $481 million, according to Forbes’ estimates. Even so, with the average NFL team now worth $4.5 billion and the Dallas Cowboys reaching a record $8 billion this year, the Titans remain No. 27 (of 32) on the list of most valuable NFL franchises.
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Adams Strunk credits her success to having no preconceived notions about how to run a team. “Just because something has been done a certain way forever doesn’t make it the right way anymore,” she says, adding that it’s often easier to come in with big ideas as an outsider. “We talk a lot about being a 60-year-old startup,” says the team’s CEO, Burke Nihill, who took over two years ago. “Amy has encouraged us to challenge everything.”
Next up is the issue that vexed her father: a new stadium. While it is expected to cost more than $2 billion and the city has yet to sign off amid questions over taxpayer funding, Forbes has estimated that it could increase the Titans’ value by $300 million. To pay for their share of the new stadium—the team ownership and an NFL loan are expected to cover at least $700 million—the family will sell some of its other assets. Adams Strunk believes a new stadium, which would be fully enclosed, could host not only the Titans but also concerts and, yes, that big game with the $7 million commercials.
Super Bowl aside, Adams Strunk thinks her father would be a fan of the job she’s done. “I think if he was looking down now,” she says, “he’d be super proud.”
Win-Win: A new Titans stadium could add $300 million to the value of the team.
Wesley Hitt/Getty Images
MOVING THE GOALPOSTS
Women have owned NFL teams for more than 70 years, beginning with Violet Bidwill who inherited the Cardinals in 1947 from her late husband. All told, Forbes found at least 29 women with NFL stakes, a record number that’s roughly double a decade ago. Several, including the Titans’ Amy Adams Strunk, already run or help run the show. Others are likely to gain more prominence in the future.
Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay’s daughters, Carlie, Casey and Kalen—who make regular appearances at NFL owner meetings—stepped in as control owners of the team in 2014, following their father’s temporary suspension after pleading guilty to DWI charges. And recently suspended Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross reportedly plans to leave control ownership to his daughter, Jennifer Ross. “There’s a next generation of female owners already lined up,” says Marc Ganis, president of consulting firm Sportscorp.
Below are the nine women, in addition to Adams Strunk, who are currently majority owners or co-owners in the NFL.
—Reporting by Lisa Elena Rennau
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Jody Allen | Seattle Seahawks
The sister of Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen (who died in 2018), she is the sole trustee of a trust that owns the Seahawks and serves as the team’s chair. Proceeds from any sale of the team will go to charity. Allen, 63, said this summer that the team is not currently for sale and her focus is on winning.
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Gayle Benson | New Orleans Saints
The widow of New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson—who removed his children from his will before he died—inherited the team in 2018. She is not only a billionaire ($4.7 billion) but also owns the NBA’s New Orleans Pelicans, making her the only woman who is sole owner of two major sports teams. One of the league’s most involved female owners, Benson, 75, also serves on the NFL’s Audit, Business and Hall of Fame committees.
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Sheila Ford Hamp | Detroit Lions
The sister of Ford Motor Company chairman Bill Ford, she gained control of the team from her mother, Martha Firestone Ford, in 2020. During her first season running the Lions, she implemented a program to improve the organization’s corporate culture. Ford Hamp, 71, has also worked to improve diversity—the Lions now have one of the league’s handful of Black general managers—and gained respect for her support of Colin Kaepernick.
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Dee Haslam | Cleveland Browns
She and her husband, Jimmy, have owned a majority stake in the Browns since 2012. In addition to being a member of the NFL’s conduct and social justice committees, Haslam, 68, has advocated for more diversity in team operations. After quarterback Deshaun Watson was suspended and fined $5 million in a settlement with the NFL that concluded the league’s investigation into sexual misconduct claims, the Haslams announced they would invest $1 million toward sexual misconduct awareness and education.
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Virginia Halas McCaskey | Chicago Bears
The oldest daughter of Papa Bear himself, team founder George Halas, she inherited the team following his death in 1983, making her the longest-tenured owner in the NFL—at 99. Today, she’s a secretary on the Bears’ board of directors and advisor to her son George, who serves as chairman and representative of the team at NFL owners meetings.
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Janice McNair | Houston Texans
Her late husband, Bob, brought football back to Houston in 2002, and she inherited the team in 2018. Now 85 and worth $5 billion, she oversees the franchise as co-founder and senior chair.
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Kim Pegula | Buffalo Bills
Pegula and her husband, Terry, purchased the Bills in 2014. She has overseen the Bills’ day-to-day operations ever since and was appointed team president in 2018, the first woman to hold that position in both an NFL and NHL franchise (as the Pegulas also own the Buffalo Sabres). An outspoken proponent of more diversity in football leadership positions, Pegula, 53, serves on the NFL’s workplace diversity committee.
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Tanya Snyder | Washington Commanders
The wife of the Washington Commanders’ co-owner, Dan Snyder, she took command of the team in 2021 amid investigations into workplace misconduct at the franchise. A breast cancer survivor, she also helped launch the NFL’s Think Pink breast cancer awareness initiative, in 1999.
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Denise DeBartolo York | San Francisco 49ers
York took control of the 49ers in 2001 after her brother, Edward Debartolo, Jr., was suspended from the NFL a year earlier. A billionaire since 2012 ($5.1 billion), she is the wealthiest of all female majority owners in the NFL. York and her husband, John, serve as co-chairs of the 49ers, while their oldest son, Jed, is the team CEO.
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Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/amyfeldman/2022/09/24/meet-billionaire-tennessee-titans-owner-amy-adams-strunk-and-nine-other-women-changing-the-game-in-the-nfl/