Jim Irsay called Hall of Fame owners Art Rooney, Wellington Mara and Lamar Hunt his uncles in the NFL, but at the same time, his Indianapolis office was the only one in football to feature Jerry Garcia's guitar and the original manuscript scroll of Jack Kerouac's counterculture classic On the Road. He emphasized stability and patience with the Colts, while his personal life was often marked by turbulence. He was the NFL's flower-child owner, but also one of its throwbacks.
On Wednesday, Irsay died at 65, having brought calm -- and a championship -- to a franchise that had once been infamous for the dead-of-night move from Baltimore his father orchestrated.
"We are devastated to announce our beloved Owner & CEO, Jim Irsay, passed away peacefully in his sleep this afternoon," the Colts said in a statement Wednesday evening. "Jim's dedication and passion for the Indianapolis Colts in addition to his generosity, commitment to the community, and most importantly, his love for his family were unsurpassed. Our deepest sympathies go to his daughters, Carlie Irsay-Gordon, Casey Foyt, Kalen Jackson, and his entire family as we grieve with them.
"Some of Jim's fondest memories came from his youth working training camps in Baltimore and growing relationships with players, coaches, and staff whom he considered his extended family. He worked in every department before he was named the youngest general manager in team history in 1984 when the Colts arrived in Indianapolis. After he took sole ownership in 1997, he led the Colts to a long series of division titles and brought the city its first Super Bowl Championship. Jim's love and appreciation for the NFL in addition to its history, tradition, and principles influenced him to become a steward of the game throughout his 50-plus years in the League.
"Jim's generosity can be felt all over Indianapolis, the state of Indiana and the country. He made philanthropy a daily endeavor. He never hesitated to help countless organizations and individuals live better lives. Music was one of Jim's passions and the ability to share his band and collection with millions of people across the world brought him tremendous joy. Simply put, he wanted to make the world a better place and that philosophy never wavered. Jim will be deeply missed by his family, the Colts organization, and fans everywhere, but we remain inspired by his caring and unique spirit."
Irsay had dealt with health issues of late, having been treated for severe respiratory illness in January of 2024 and, in March of last year, said he was doing well after his 26th surgery in the past seven years.
The 2024 season was Irsay's 38th with the club, having become the NFL's youngest general manager at 25 in 1984. Irsay took over as the team's principal owner in 1997 and saw the Colts advance to the playoffs 16 times, win two AFC championships and one Super Bowl during during his tenure.
"We were deeply saddened to learn of Jim Irsay's passing today," Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement. "Jim was a friend, and a man deeply committed to his family, the game, the Colts, and the Indianapolis community. He spent his life and career in the National Football League. Starting as a teenager as a Colts' ballboy, he learned every position in the organization before assuming leadership of the Colts approximately 30 years ago. Jim's Colts won the Super Bowl, hosted another and built Lucas Oil Stadium.
"Within the League, Jim was an active Chairman of the Legislative Committee and member of the Finance Committee. He led with integrity, passion and care for the Colts' players, coaches and staff, and his courageous work in support of mental health will be a lasting legacy. Outside of football, he was a talented musician and built an extraordinary collection of historical and musical artifacts that he shared with people across the country.
"On behalf of the entire NFL, I extend my heartfelt condolences to Jim's daughters and their families, and to his many friends throughout the NFL."
Under Irsay, the Colts -- with a big assist from Peyton Manning -- transformed the state of Indiana from a basketball stronghold to football territory. Irsay spent the early part of his life apologizing for his father's volatile behavior -- Robert Irsay, who made his fortune in sheet metal and ventilation businesses, acquired the Colts when Jim was 12 -- even boarding a team bus when he was 16 years old to express regret to a coach his father had just fired after a preseason loss.
"Sometimes your best teachers teach you how not to do it," Irsay said in a 2005 interview with the New York Times.
Irsay did learn plenty while working for his father, though, serving a football apprenticeship, often shepherded by then-Colts employee Ernie Accorsi. Irsay became steeped in everything from ticket sales to personnel evaluation, even serving as the general manager soon after the team relocated from Baltimore to Indy. It gave Irsay a breadth of football knowledge unusual among today's newest owners and it served him well when -- in one of the first of a series of moves he made when he assumed control of the team in 1997 -- he hired Bill Polian to be the general manager, ushering in an era defined by Manning's sustained excellence.
Accorsi credited Irsay with having the self-awareness and selflessness to give up the general manager's job for the good of the franchise. But even after he created distance from football decisions, Irsay remained closely involved with the team and personally close to many players. When Irsay released Manning after a neck injury threatened his career -- and after Irsay spent an entire season agonizing over the decision to move on, with the opportunity to draft Andrew Luck staring him in the face -- he wept. It was, in one moment, an encapsulation of Irsay: a clear-eyed businessman who also deeply valued relationships.
"I consider myself a really serious businessman, but I think big business can have a big heart," Irsay said in the 2005 New York Times interview. "My influence from people like John Lennon and others growing up, my feeling is that you can be a lot of different things. People like John Lennon, Pete Townshend, Bob Dylan had a huge influence, their beliefs, the way Lennon was a guy who took it to far lengths in terms of the peace movement."
The Colts enjoyed extraordinary consistency -- and by extension, business success -- with Manning and, eventually, coach Tony Dungy. During Manning's 13 starting seasons in Indianapolis, the Colts won at least 10 games 11 times, prevailing in one Super Bowl and going to another. In the process, the Colts became one of the NFL's biggest draws and Irsay got a new, mostly publicly-funded stadium built. And he later hosted a Super Bowl.
Irsay, however, thought Indianapolis ultimately underachieved in winning just one Lombardi Trophy with Manning. And when the team bottomed out in 2011 -- with Manning injured -- Irsay cleaned house. Dungy's successor, Jim Caldwell, and Polian were fired. Manning was sent packing. It was an excruciating period for Irsay, whose relationship with Manning grew so strained in that stretch that they fully reconciled only after an extended cooling-off period.
During that time, Irsay mused aloud over the fraught balancing act he had tried to sustain as an owner.
"The bottom line is you're trying to always go toward greatness," Irsay told the New York Times in January 2012. "There's great affection, tremendous loyalty, but any time you open up the season, when you walk in the locker room, there is a circle. And my obligation to everyone in that locker room is the circle has to be as strong as possible to give us a chance to win.
"Continuity is a great thing; staying the course and being patient, those are important virtues. But also there is virtue in being realistic enough to know you have to make serious changes sometimes."
The Colts had mixed results after the upheaval, winning 11 games in each of Luck's first three seasons and going to the AFC Championship Game in the 2014 campaign, before bottoming out again with just four wins in 2017 when Luck was out with a shoulder injury. Luck's stunning retirement just before the start of the 2019 season sent the franchise into a protracted search for a long-term starter and the results reflected that trip through the quarterback wilderness. Irsay took big swings with veteran free agents Philip Rivers, Carson Wentz and Matt Ryan. Each lasted just one season, and only Rivers got the Colts to the postseason, where they lost in the Wild Card Round. The Ryan experiment in 2022 was such a disappointment that Irsay fired head coach Frank Reich in the middle of the season and then made one of his most confounding decisions: pulling former Colts center Jeff Saturday from ESPN and installing him on the sideline. He went 1-7 as the head man before returning to broadcasting. In 2023, the Colts started over with Shane Steichen and the quarterback they hoped would finally pull the team out of its post-Luck struggle, Anthony Richardson. Now heading into Year 3, though, Richardson is facing a quarterback competition with free-agent signee Daniel Jones.
While Irsay placed great value in running a stable and peaceful organization, his personal life was often in tumult. He spoke candidly about his use of recreational drugs and struggles with addiction. He was often racked by back and hip pain. In 2013, his wife of 33 years divorced him after a decade-long separation. In March of 2014, he was arrested for -- and ultimately pleaded guilty to -- operating a vehicle while intoxicated. (Nine years later, he would complain in an interview that there was prejudice during that incident because he was, in his words, "a rich, white billionaire.") Following that arrest, he retreated to a treatment facility, was fined $500,000 and suspended six games by the NFL, during which time his oldest daughter, Carlie, ran the team. Later it was revealed that a longtime female companion had died of a drug overdose in a home owned by Irsay just days before his arrest.
When Irsay was awaiting his punishment from the NFL following his arrest, he was asked how it felt to be back at a league function after he finished treatment.
"It's a great privilege to be part of the NFL (that) you don't take for granted every day," Irsay told reporters then. "You just treasure it."
The incidents sullied Irsay's public image. But among owners, he was well-liked, in part because he had a great appreciation for the history of the game and the towering figures he had sat among as a teenager attending meetings with his father. His league input was prominently felt on the rule book. After a playoff loss to the Patriots, he and Polian advocated for rules enforcement that favored the offense at the expense of physical defensive play. This spurred changes that, early in the 2000s, helped propel the explosion of the passing game. The Colts undoubtedly benefited from that trend, but so did the NFL.
His most significant influence on the league, though, may have come at the NFL's Fall League Meeting in October of 2022. The league was then dealing with a series of controversies and investigations into the behavior of Washington Commanders owner Dan Snyder and others in the franchise, and the concurrent decline in the team's on- and off-field performance. During a break in that meeting, Irsay walked up to a group of reporters and said there was merit for owners to consider removing Snyder from team ownership. Irsay was the first owner to say aloud in public what other owners and league officials had only whispered privately about. Irsay's open statement caught the rest of the league off guard, and Snyder immediately said he would not give up his team. But within weeks of Irsay's remarks, the Commanders were up for sale, and by the start of the 2023 season, Snyder was out.
Irsay's wild-child image, which he carried with him well after his goatee and slicked-back hair had turned gray, belied the way he ran his franchise. That hued much more closely to the long-view influence of the league's elder statesmen from whom he first took guidance. For all his team's success, there were times during Irsay's sometimes-difficult ownership when he seemed wistful that he had to make all the decisions without reaching back to the game's past.
"When you are younger, you think there's a wise man behind that door with a white beard, and you can go see him and he'll tell you the answers," Irsay said in the 2012 New York Times interview. "But that man is not there."
