Jim Irsay, the straight-shooting, hard-living, football-loving owner of the Indianapolis Colts who spent his entire adult life around the team that his father bought more than a half-century ago, died on Wednesday. He was 65.
His death was announced in a statement by Pete Ward, the Colts’ chief operating officer, noting that he died in his sleep that afternoon. No cause was given.
Mr. Irsay had health issues in recent years, including hip surgery, which left him reliant on walking poles. He was also battling an addiction to alcohol.
But through it all, Mr. Irsay remained an active and forceful presence in N.F.L. circles. He was on the powerful finance committee and, unlike his fellow owners, rarely shied away from offering his opinions to reporters, commenting even on sensitive topics, like contract disputes, fellow owners and their worthiness to own their teams.
He was also an active and visible cheerleader for the Colts, sending inspirational messages on social media to fire up fans before games.
By his own proclamation, Mr. Irsay considered himself one of the standard-bearers for the N.F.L. He would often point out that George Halas Sr., the founding owner of the Chicago Bears and a co-founder of the N.F.L., attended his wedding in 1980. Irsay also did not hide from one of the most controversial episodes in N.F.L. history: his father’s decision to move the Colts team from Baltimore to Indianapolis on a snowy night in 1984. The move was derided as an example of the N.F.L.’s bottomless greed and willingness to abandon fans and their city in search of more money.
But what came through during Irsay’s rambling monologues in an interview last year with The New York Times was his love of football and the N.F.L., and his appreciation for being able to spend most of his life around the country’s most popular sport.
“I’ve been blessed enough for 52 years to witness it and be thankfully young enough to be a 24-year-old general manager and 22-year-old scout,” he said. “I wish I could live for another 50 years. I’d love to see what the league is 50 years from now.”
Mr. Irsay’s romance with the N.F.L. dates back at least to 1972, when his father, Robert Irsay, bought the Colts in one of the odder team transactions in league history. First, he bought the Los Angeles Rams for $19 million from the estate of Dan Reeves, then swapped teams with Carroll Rosenbloom, who owned the Baltimore Colts.
Robert Irsay, who also battled alcoholism, was impulsive and meddling, making rash personnel decisions and berating players.
“He had no idea how to run a football team,” Mr. Irsay said of his father.
But Robert Irsay brought Jim, the youngest of his three children, into the fold, allowing him to hang around the team as a teenager and to work odd jobs and befriend players and coaches.
Jim Irsay played football in high school, but his collegiate career ended after an ankle injury during his freshman year at Southern Methodist University in Texas. After finishing college with a degree in broadcast journalism in 1982, he returned to the team to work in the front office.
By that time, the Colts were in the midst of a long stretch of losing seasons, and his father was urging officials to upgrade the aging Memorial Stadium, which the team shared with the Baltimore Orioles. While he was being wooed by Phoenix, Memphis and Jacksonville, Fla., officials in Baltimore promised to renovate the stadium, and both the city and state of Maryland made offers to help finance the venture.
His father never accepted the proposals, and when Indianapolis called to offer him the chance to play in a new stadium there, he decided to pull up stakes and leave, a decision that earned him eternal scorn in Baltimore.
“My dad called and said, ‘When it’s dark, I’ll tell you when the Mayflower trucks are coming up the hill,’” Mr. Irsay said about the night his father ordered a handful of employees to move the team. Luring the team to Indiana was smart, he said, “because Indianapolis without the Colts — it’s Columbus, Ohio. I mean, that’s just as simple as it is.”
After arriving in Indianapolis, Mr. Irsay said his father appointed him vice president and general manager in part to save money. The younger Irsay learned about the business of running a team and the league; he began regularly attending owner’s meetings and joined committees, including a four-man group that helped develop the salary cap that was introduced in 1994.
James Steven Irsay was born on June 13, 1959, in Lincolnwood, Ill., north of Chicago. Robert Irsay owned a heating and air-conditioning business. Jim’s mother, Harriet Pogorzelski, was a homemaker. Although Robert Irsay was Jewish, Jim was raised Catholic, his mother’s religion.
Growing up in the Chicago suburb of Winnetka, Jim boxed and played football. After his football career ended in college, he turned to competitive powerlifting and marathons, sports that contributed to some of the ailments he later suffered.
He is survived by three daughters, Carlie Irsay-Gordon, Casey Irsay Foyt and Kalen Irsay Jackson, and by seven grandchildren. His brother, Thomas, was born with a mental disability and died in 1999. His sister, Roberta, died in a car crash in 1971 at age 15.
His marriage to Margaret Mary Coyle ended in divorce in 2013.
In 1995, Mr. Irsay’s tumultuous family life burst into view when Robert Irsay had a stroke. With his father incapacitated, Jim Irsay became general manager and chief operating officer in 1996. But Nancy Irsay, Robert’s second wife, claimed that she owned the team. A bank became guardian of the estate under court order, while Jim and his stepmother settled the dispute. Robert Irsay died in January 1997, and later that year Mr. Irsay, then 37, became sole owner of the team and the youngest in the N.F.L. to do so.
Just a few months later, the fortunes of the Colts and Mr. Irsay changed forever. He traded a third-round draft pick to the Carolina Panthers for Bill Polian, its general manager, who then drafted the quarterback Peyton Manning with the first overall pick in the draft. After a mediocre rookie season, Manning and the Colts became one of the league’s best teams over the next dozen seasons, winning the Super Bowl in the 2006 season.
Mr. Irsay finally had the stability and success that his father never achieved.
After Manning missed the 2011 season with a neck injury and the Colts went 2-14 in his absence, Irsay released him, the face of the franchise whose return to form was not assured. With the top pick in the draft, the Colts selected Andrew Luck, the talented quarterback from Stanford University who had a successful career until injuries pushed him into retirement in 2019.
The Colts have been back to the playoffs only once since then.
Mr. Irsay’s private life at times made news. In 2014, he was arrested on four felony counts, including possession of drugs and driving while impaired. He spent time in a rehabilitation facility, and the N.F.L. suspended him for six games and forced him to pay a $500,000 fine.
In a 2023 interview, Mr. Irsay accused the police of profiling him “because I’m a rich white billionaire” and said the reason he was charged with driving while impaired was because he couldn’t walk straight following hip surgery. His comments were widely panned.
In recent years, he focused much of his energy away from the Colts on an initiative to destigmatize and improve access to mental health, and on his sprawling music and sports memorabilia collection. While other owners splurged on art work, yachts and beachfront homes, Irsay spent tens of millions of dollars on guitars played by rock legends like Bob Dylan and a championship belt won by Muhammad Ali.
Irsay took his collection on tour, displaying it free in one-night-only events coupled with concerts by an all-star rock band.
“It’s an eclectic collection, but really it’s about spirituality, it’s about human beings being as great as they can and changing the world with love and strength,” Mr. Irsay said.
The collection, he added, was his way to share his passion for music, history and sports.
“I’ve been so blessed, and like I always knew, rock ’n’ roll and N.F.L. football — that’s America, man, that’s what it’s about,” he said before one of his shows in 2022. “I mean, it doesn’t get any bigger, better than that.”
Alexandra E. Petri contributed reporting.
Ken Belson is a Times reporter covering sports, power and money at the N.F.L. and other professional sports leagues.
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