The Colts are expected to keep the ownership as a family affair, with Carlie Irsay-Gordon heading football operations.
According to The IndyStar’s Joel A. Erickson, current Indianapolis Colts vice chair/owner Carlie Irsay-Gordon, the oldest (44) of recently deceased team owner Jim Irsay’s three daughters, is expected to assume control of the team’s football operations going forward:
“Carlie Irsay-Gordon is expected to assume control of the Indianapolis Colts’ football operations in the wake of the death of her father, Jim Irsay, Wednesday at the age of 65, stepping fully into a role she’s spent a long time preparing to handle,” Erickson writes.
“Irsay-Gordon, 44, is expected to share ownership of the team with her sisters, Casey Foyt and Kalen Jackson, who have long held their own roles within the organization and were formally given the titles of vice chair/owners in 2012.”
“But it is Irsay-Gordon who will primarily take charge of the football side of the franchise after years spent preparing to take over for her father whenever the time came.”
With her father’s lingering health issues before his tragic passing on Wednesday afternoon, we’ve seen each of the Irsay daughters more actively involved and publicly facing with the day-to-day operations of the Colts franchise.
Irsay-Gordon has been seen attending training camp practices, participating in the Colts’ draft war room, and even wearing headsets along the sidelines at Colts’ gamedays, listening to the play-calling, over the past few years.
It appears that a leadership transition for primarily overseeing the ownership of the Colts franchise to his three daughters was already informally in motion—maybe even out of necessity because of Jim Irsay’s re-occurring health issues in more recent years.
However, even with Jim Irsay clearly looking more physically diminished as of late, a full transition happening a little sooner than anyone likely anticipated, with the longtime Colts team owner and steward passing away at just 65-years-old.
The Colts franchise appears to be in good hands going forward and will be kept within the Irsay family—which is what Jim Irsay ultimately wanted. May he rest in peace.