INDIANAPOLIS — 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.
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.
The time first came temporarily in 2014. Irsay-Gordon took over for her father twice following his arrest for driving while intoxicated, first during his treatment in rehabilitation centers, then during her father’s six-game suspension.
She has been closely involved with the franchise’s football side for two decades. Irsay-Gordon began her career in the team’s football and marketing departments, then started attending the NFL’s owner’s meetings with her father in the early 2000s.
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Irsay-Gordon has long worked closely with general managers Ryan Grigson and Chris Ballard, along with other members of the front office — in a video with former Indianapolis backup quarterback Matt Hasselbeck, Irsay-Gordon credited former Colts pro scouting coordinator Andrew Berry with helping her learn the game — and she’s worked closely with the coaching staff as well, carefully taking notes at practices and wearing a headset on the sidelines on game days to hear the coaching staff’s play calls.
Ballard has praised his working relationship with Irsay-Gordon in the past, most notably expressing his appreciation for her input at the NFL Scouting Combine’s “Women in Football Forum” in 2019.
“She will ask 500 questions about why, and a lot of times, it’ll halfway piss me off, but I’ll go and I’ll think, and I’m thinking, ‘Freak, she’s right,’” Ballard said. “She asks the question from a different perspective and makes you think about why you do what you’re doing.”
Carlie Irsay-Gordon:The woman expected to be running the Colts
From a football standpoint, Irsay-Gordon was reportedly involved heavily in the in-depth coaching search that led to the team hiring Shane Steichen in 2023, and she has also worked with the team’s communication departments and ticket offices.
By taking control of the team, Irsay-Gordon and her sisters become part of a growing number of women in charge of NFL franchises.
Detroit’s Sheila Ford-Hamp, Tennessee’s Amy Adams-Strunk, Seattle’s Jody Allen and New Orleans’ Gayle Benson are all the lead voices in their organizations. Chicago’s Virginia Halas McCaskey was primary owner of the Bears until she died Feb. 5 at age 102. Houston’s Janice McNair is also the primary owner of the Texans, although she is 88, and both women have sons who are heavily involved in the team’s day-to-day activities. A handful of other women — Buffalo’s Kim Pegula, Cleveland’s Dee Haslam and Las Vegas’s Carol Davis — are listed as owners along with their husbands.
Irsay-Gordon and her sisters will also become the youngest owners in the NFL by more than a decade. Outside of the 55-year-old Pegula, who shares the team with her 74-year-old husband, Terry, the youngest primary owners in the league is Kansas City’s Clark Hunt, who is 60.
In that way, Irsay-Gordon, Jackson and Foyt are a lot like their father, who took over the Colts at the age of 37, making him the youngest owner in the NFL at the time.
And like their father, Irsay-Gordon, Jackson and Foyt have spent a lot of time preparing for this day, a day when Irsay-Gordon permanently takes over control of the franchise.
