INDIANAPOLIS – The Indianapolis Colts earned a major award recognizing their work with the Kicking the Stigma initiative.
On Tuesday, the Colts were named the 2025 Sports Humanitarian Team of Year, a prestigious honor from the ESPY Awards. The award goes to a sports club or team that demonstrates “how teamwork can create a measurable impact on a community or cause.”
The team’s Kicking the Stigma campaign has prioritized mental health awareness, research and treatment. The Irsay family and the team launched the initiative in 2020, making the Colts the first major professional sports franchise to prioritize mental health disorders and work to remove the stigma associated with mental health struggles.
The Irsay family and the Colts have committed more than $31 million to the program since 2020 and awarded more than $6 million in grants to fund research and expand mental health services.
Programs supported through Kicking the Stigma Action Grants include Children’s TherAplay, Recovery Cafe Muncie, U Bring Change to Mind at Indiana University and the HOPE Family Care Center.
For late Colts owner Jim Irsay and his family, creating Kicking the Stigma was a deeply personal cause.
“Instead of the story being told about us, we wanted to tell our own story in hopes of helping others who are struggling,” said Kalen Jackson, Irsay’s daughter and one of the team’s co-owners.
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has noticed Kicking the Stigma’s impact.
“Jim had such a capacity to care for people, to take the bold step to do something different and to make a difference in the world,” Goodell said. “So it didn’t surprise me at all when the Irsay family, led by Jim, really came out with the Kicking the Stigma initiative because it’s what Jim’s all about — doing something different to make the world a better place.”
The Colts have been a finalist for Sports Humanitarian Team of the Year for the last three years. They’re the third NFL team win the award and the first franchise recognized for work in the mental health field since its inception in 2015.
The Los Angeles Clippers, Los Angeles Kings and New York Yankees were this year’s other finalists.