Era of self-made owners fading
Four who have died and one who sold team this year started humble, made imprint on league
Every professional sports league is filled with owners who are doers, those who are followers and some silent types who speak up only when they must. In a relatively short period, the NFL has lost a collection of all three types of owners.
On Friday, the Houston Texans’ founding owner, Bob McNair, died at 81 after a long battle with cancer. He became the fifth owner this year to die or to sell a team, an unusual amount of turnover in a league known for its stability.
In October, the Seattle Seahawks owner, Paul Allen, died at 65 of complications from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. A week before, Alex Spanos, who bought the San Diego Chargers in 1984, died at 95. In May, Jerry Richardson, the founding owner of the Carolina Panthers, sold his team after reports emerged accusing him of sexual harassment and using racial slurs. In March, Tom Benson, who bought a majority stake in the New Orleans Saints in 1985, died at 90.
The five belonged to a fastdiminishing group of owners who were self-made business owners and more often than not came from humble beginnings. They made their fortunes in industries that boomed in the 1960s and 1970s, when they built their empires — in energy (McNair), car dealerships (Benson), fast-food franchises (Richardson) and home building (Spanos). Only Allen, who started Microsoft with Bill Gates, staked his claim in what might be considered a cutting-edge industry.
Given how much it costs to buy a team (the Panthers sold for $2.3 billion), it’s hard to imagine many car dealers or fast-food franchisees being able to purchase an NFL team in the future. The league now is increasingly dominated by billionaires capable Robert ‘Bob’ McNair
of paying nine- and even 10-digit sums for teams, not the start-from-scratch entrepreneurs who cobbled together ownership groups.
Maybe this is inevitable. In decades past, sporting events were analog affairs. Tickets were printed and sold, sponsors were asked to pay for signs in stadiums and fans turned on their televisions on Sunday afternoons to see their teams play.
As the price of sports franchises has skyrocketed, so too have the challenges of running them. Owners these days need to be familiar with concepts like streaming, mobile ticketing and virtual reality, or at least have smart people around them, to understand how the league can continue growing.
And to get an adequate return on their huge investments, they need to look for ways to wring money out of their franchises in increasingly complex and controversial ways, like ripping teams out of their communities and taking them to more profitable locations.
Yet in varying ways, the departed owners made an imprint on the financial and social behemoth that the NFL has become.
Richardson and McNair did more than just bring teams to the Carolinas and to Houston (which lost its Oilers to Tennessee before the Texans were assembled as an expansion team). They were heavyweights in a group that included more than its share of powerful men.
McNair was the chairman of the influential finance committee, and Richardson was the only owner to have played in the NFL. As veteran owners, they were trusted confidants of Commissioner Roger Goodell. Both played key roles in helping the NFL return to Los Angeles, and at various times were on the compensation committee, which determines how much the commissioner and other top league executives were paid.
Benson, an accountant by trade, was another stalwart on the finance committee.
Each went about his business differently. McNair rarely shied away from a reporter’s notebook or microphone, using folksy language that was both blunt and charming. Richardson avoided the media spotlight, but spoke with conviction in smaller settings.
Allen almost never attended league meetings, but when he did, everyone took note, such as the time he flew to a special session in Houston in 2016 and threw his weight behind Los Angeles Rams owner Stan Kroenke, who had ambitious plans to build a stadium in Los Angeles.
Some of the changes have been subtle. Spanos’ son, Dean, has run the Chargers for years. Gayle Benson, Tom’s widow, has grabbed the reins of the Saints. McNair’s son, Cal, is the Texans’ chairman and chief operating officer, and likely to stay atop the franchise. Allen’s sister, Jody, is in charge of the Seahawks, at least for now.
In other ways, real turnover is afoot. Richardson’s departure, amid a league investigation into the accusations against him, reflected a changing environment. So did his replacement. He sold to David Tepper, a hedge fund mogul.