Jim Irsay’s daughters have inherited an NFL team that has been in their family for 53 years and is now worth $5.9 billion—making them among the richest female owners in sports.
On a somber day in June, a month after Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay’s unexpected death, his three daughters sat before a room of reporters with the tough task of addressing the team’s future. Asked to reflect on the lessons they had learned from their late father over the years, Carlie Irsay-Gordon, the eldest of the three and the franchise’s newly appointed CEO, chimed in with one of his habits the sisters did not plan to emulate.
“Well, maybe tweeting,” the 44-year-old Irsay-Gordon said, drawing laughs from the crowd.
Moving past her father’s outspokenness on social media, Irsay-Gordon offered bits of wisdom like the importance of hiring the right people and empowering them to do their jobs, giving back to the community and chasing big ideas, even when they seem crazy. But as she sat beside her siblings—Casey Foyt, 42, and Kalen Jackson, 38—Irsay-Gordon dwelled on one point her father had repeatedly stressed: the significance of the Colts to their family.
In fact, it’s all they’ve ever known. The franchise has been run by an Irsay since 1972, when the sisters’ grandfather, Robert, acquired the team for a then-record price of $19 million. When he died 25 years later, a 37-year-old Jim ascended to the owner’s box, ushering in an age of prosperity as the Colts, worth an estimated $227 million in Forbes’ inaugural NFL team valuations in 1998, appreciated nearly 2,500% to $5.9 billion today. The run-up gave Irsay an estimated fortune of $4.8 billion at the time of his death at 65 in May.
Now, control has passed to his three daughters—a circumstance Irsay-Gordon called “bittersweet”—and the skyrocketing value of NFL franchises has placed the three among the richest female owners in sports. Forbes estimates that Irsay-Gordon, Foyt and Jackson are each worth $1.9 billion based on equal 33.3% stakes in the Colts.
This season, the Colts will wear a patch in honor of longtime owner Jim Irsay, who died in May at 65.
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While those eye-watering numbers might make the idea of cashing out tempting, especially after a slew of record-setting minority transactions around the NFL over the past year, the Irsay heirs are proud to lead one of the league’s few franchises solely under family control.
And they plan to keep it that way.
“We come from a family that didn’t start a hedge fund or some other business and do this, especially the generation we’re in,” Irsay-Gordon said in June, not long after Foyt mentioned that the sisters and their father all had matching horseshoe tattoos. “This is our business, and we take it very seriously.”
While the Irsay name has become synonymous with the Colts, the family’s entry into pro football actually started with another franchise: the Los Angeles Rams. After building a successful heating and air conditioning business, notably by driving his own father’s rival outfit to bankruptcy, Chicago-based entrepreneur Robert Irsay decided he wanted to own a sports team, and he didn’t care much which one.
By that time, the then-Baltimore Colts’ founding owner, Carroll Rosenbloom, had grown weary of his franchise and its city, and he had his eye on the Rams when they came up for sale in 1971. His problem, however, was the $4.4 million in capital gains taxes he would have to pay if he sold the Colts. The solution: With the NFL’s blessing, Rosenbloom facilitated the sale of the Rams to Irsay for a reported $19 million, and the two parties, in an unprecedented move, promptly exchanged franchises.
During Jim Irsay’s 28-year tenure in control, the Colts became a perennial contender and opened a new stadium in 2008.
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Irsay’s tenure would not be remembered fondly by the city of Baltimore. After a failed attempt to secure public money for a new stadium and more than a decade of mediocrity, including a winless record during the strike-shortened 1982 season, Irsay got the NFL’s permission to explore new markets. At one point, Phoenix was a front-runner to land the Colts, but Indianapolis, and its newly constructed Hoosier Dome, eventually won out. Facing a last-minute threat by the Maryland General Assembly to seize the team through eminent domain, Irsay relocated the Colts across the country overnight in 1984, an infamous event dubbed the “Midnight Move.”
That same year, Irsay installed his 24-year-old son, Jim, as the youngest general manager in NFL history, and three years later, the fledgling executive orchestrated a blockbuster ten-player trade that brought Pro Football Hall of Famer Eric Dickerson to Indianapolis. Of course, the Colts’ true on-field revitalization wouldn’t begin until the following decade, after Jim Irsay ceded the GM title and the franchise in 1998 drafted a promising young quarterback named Peyton Manning.
With a roster that also eventually featured Hall of Famers Marvin Harrison, Edgerrin James and Dwight Freeney, the Colts became a perennial contender, winning ten or more games for nine consecutive seasons. In February 2007, the Colts beat the Chicago Bears in Super Bowl XLI for their first championship since legendary quarterback Johnny Unitas had raised the Lombardi Trophy for Baltimore 36 years earlier. Irsay then delivered the franchise a new $720 million home with the opening of Lucas Oil Stadium in 2008, using a reported $666 million in public financing from municipal bonds.
As much success as Irsay had on the field, he had his struggles away from the game. His brother died young, and Irsay lost his sister in a car accident when he was 11. His father and grandfather were alcoholics, he later recalled, and Irsay had his own battles with substance abuse. In 2002, the Indianapolis Star reported that Irsay had received 120 prescriptions in a year from a local plastic surgeon; Irsay was not charged with a crime but admitted later that year that he was addicted to painkillers.
Irsay also pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of operating a vehicle while intoxicated in 2014, after the police said they had found prescription drugs in his car. (In an HBO interview nine years later, he blamed the arrest on police prejudice against him for being “a rich, white billionaire.”)
Irsay was often open about his addiction, saying he had been to rehab at least 15 times and founding the mental health charity Kicking The Stigma, but in August, three months after his death, the Washington Post reported that Irsay had relapsed in the last two years of his life, taking worrying amounts of opioids and ketamine. In one instance in December 2023, the police found Irsay unresponsive and struggling to breathe after a suspected overdose.
Even though Irsay’s death came “sooner than we thought,” Foyt told reporters in June, he had been preparing his daughters for a future in football. Long before the three sisters were publicly named Colts co-owners in 2012, they had spent countless years around the organization, with their lives always revolving around the NFL schedule. Foyt recalled answering the phones at the front desk while she was in high school.
“He let us in on conversations at a very young age, and when I look back on it now, I’m kind of surprised,” Jackson said in June. “But he trusted us, and he knew that we understood the seriousness of this job and the responsibility that we had. And I think we’ll forever be grateful for that.”
Early in her career, Foyt worked for the NFL, where she helped plan the league’s first regular-season game played outside North America, in London in 2007, but she returned to the Colts that year with a focus on marketing and community relationships. Jackson officially joined the organization in 2010 and currently leads its philanthropic arm, including Kicking The Stigma, while also holding the title of chief brand officer.
Irsay-Gordon, once a team intern, has been involved with the Colts’ inner workings for more than two decades, having represented the franchise at NFL owners’ meetings as early as 2004. Four years later, she took on a vice president role with the Colts as she pursued a doctorate in clinical psychology.
Long seen as Irsay’s likeliest successor, Irsay-Gordon stepped in for her father when his legal troubles resulted in a six-game suspension in 2014, and she has demonstrated a hands-on approach, attending meetings with players and coaches and standing on the sideline during games listening to play calls over a headset.
Carlie Irsay-Gordon is known for standing on the Colts’ sideline during games with a play sheet and a headset for listening to play calls. “I need to be able to say, ‘Is this person full of B.S.?’” she explained in June.
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“I need to be able to say: ‘Is this person full of B.S.? Do they even know what they’re talking about?’” Irsay-Gordon explained in June. “I would suggest it for anyone else that has to pay coaches and GMs millions and millions of dollars. It helps you make a less expensive mistake potentially.”
While Irsay-Gordon will function as the Colts’ principal owner, all three sisters are expected to share in the decision-making process—and they have plenty on their plate to manage. First and foremost is turning around the team on the field, after four straight seasons without a playoff appearance.
Beyond the gridiron, the Colts now have marketing rights in Germany, Austria and Switzerland as part of a league program that regulates where teams can promote themselves internationally, and in November, the franchise will be the designated host of the first-ever regular-season game in Berlin. The Irsays have also encouraged the sport’s growth at a grassroots level, committing $1 million in November to support girls’ high school flag football in Indiana.
“For the three of us, we’re prepared for this part, I think, with the football team,” Irsay-Gordon said in June. “But all those other things, obviously my dad was very proactive, and we have a great plan, and we’re looking forward to that stability. But I still think we have to figure that part out.”