Jim Irsay, the straight-shooting, hard-living, football-loving owner and CEO of the Indianapolis Colts who spent his entire adult life around the team that his father bought more than a half-century ago, died Wednesday. He was 65.
His death was announced in a statement by the Colts, noting that he died in his sleep that afternoon. No cause was given.
Mr. Irsay had health issues in recent years, including hip surgery, which left him reliant on walking poles. He was also battling an addiction to alcohol.
But through it all, he remained an active and forceful presence in NFL circles. He was on the powerful finance committee and, unlike his fellow owners, rarely shied away from offering his opinions to reporters, commenting even on sensitive topics such as contract disputes, fellow owners, and their worthiness to own their teams.
He was also an active and visible cheerleader for the Colts, sending inspirational messages on social media to fire up fans before games.
By his own proclamation, Irsay considered himself one of the standard-bearers for the NFL. He would often point out that George Halas Sr., the founding owner of the Chicago Bears and a co-founder of the NFL, attended his wedding in 1980.
Mr. Irsay also did not hide from one of the most controversial episodes in NFL history: his father’s decision to move the Colts team from Baltimore to Indianapolis on a snowy night in 1984. The move was derided as an example of the NFL’s bottomless greed and willingness to abandon fans and their city in search of more money.
But what came through during Mr. Irsay’s rambling monologues in an interview in 2023 with The New York Times was his love of football and the NFL, and his appreciation for being able to spend most of his life around the country’s most popular sport.
“I’ve been blessed enough for 52 years to witness it and be thankfully young enough to be a 24-year-old general manager and 22-year-old scout,’’ he said. “I wish I could live for another 50 years. I’d love to see what the league is 50 years from now.’’
Mr. Irsay’s romance with the NFL dates to at least 1972, when his father, Robert, bought the Colts in one of the odder team transactions in league history. First, he bought the Los Angeles Rams for $19 million from the estate of Dan Reeves, then swapped teams with Carroll Rosenbloom, who owned the Baltimore Colts.
Robert Irsay, who also battled alcoholism, was impulsive and meddling, making rash personnel decisions and berating players. “He had no idea how to run a football team,’’ Jim Irsay said of his father.
But Robert Irsay brought Jim, the youngest of his three children, into the fold, allowing him to hang around the team as a teenager and to work odd jobs.
Jim Irsay played football in high school, but his collegiate career ended after an ankle injury during his freshman year at Southern Methodist University in Texas. After finishing college with a degree in journalism in 1982, he returned to the team to work in the front office.
By that time, the Colts were in the midst of a long stretch of losing seasons, and his father was urging officials to upgrade the aging Memorial Stadium, which the team shared with the Baltimore Orioles. While he was being wooed by Phoenix, Memphis, and Jacksonville, officials in Baltimore promised to renovate the stadium and the city and state of Maryland made offers to help finance the venture.
His father never accepted the proposals, and when Indianapolis called to offer him the chance to play in a new stadium there, he decided to pull up stakes, a decision that earned him eternal scorn in Baltimore.
“My dad called and said, ‘When it’s dark, I’ll tell you when the Mayflower trucks are coming up the hill,’’’ Jim Irsay said about the night his father ordered a handful of employees to move the team. Luring the team to Indiana was smart, he said, “because Indianapolis without the Colts — it’s Columbus, Ohio. I mean, that’s just as simple as it is.’’
After arriving in Indianapolis, Jim Irsay said, his father appointed him vice president and general manager in part to save money. Jim Irsay began regularly attending owners meetings and joined committees, including a four-man group that helped develop the salary cap that was introduced in 1994.
James Steven Irsay was born June 13, 1959, in Lincolnwood, Ill., north of Chicago. Robert Irsay owned a heating and air conditioning business. Jim’s mother, Harriet Pogorzelski, was a homemaker. Although Robert Irsay was Jewish, Jim was raised Catholic, his mother’s religion.
He leaves three daughters, Carlie Irsay-Gordon, Casey Irsay Foyt, and Kalen Irsay Jackson, and seven grandchildren. His brother, Thomas, was born with a mental disability and died in 1999. His sister, Roberta, died in a car crash in 1971 at 15.
His marriage to Margaret Mary Coyle ended in divorce in 2013.
In 1995, Mr. Irsay’s tumultuous family life burst into view when Robert Irsay had a stroke. With his father incapacitated, Jim Irsay became general manager and chief operating officer in 1996. But Nancy Irsay, Robert’s second wife, claimed that she owned the team. A bank became guardian of the estate under court order, while Jim Irsay and his stepmother settled the dispute.
Robert Irsay died in January 1997, and later that year Irsay, then 37, became sole owner of the team and the youngest in the NFL to do so.
Just a few months later, the fortunes of the Colts and Mr. Irsay changed forever. He traded a third-round draft pick to the Carolina Panthers for Bill Polian, its general manager, who then drafted quarterback Peyton Manning with the first overall pick in the draft. After a mediocre rookie season, Manning and the Colts became one of the league’s best teams over the next dozen seasons, winning the Super Bowl in the 2006 season.
