Question: Who owns the NFL?

List of NFL franchise owners


The following is a list of current National Football League franchise owners.


† Majority or plurality owner, rather than outright owner.

‡ Family ownership of club has been passed on/split by descendant(s) of previous owner.

Benson, Bidwill, McCaskey, Brown, Ford, Irsay, Hunt, Mara, Davis, Rooney, Glazer, Smith, Spanos, York, and Adams-Strunk represent ownership that has been longer than year listed, as teams have been owned by their families longer than listed.
1 Owner held stake prior to this date.

2 Child/heir of original owner of franchise.

3 Child/heir of heir of original owner of franchise.

4 Public corporation with a grandfathered exception to current NFL ownership rules. The team is governed by a Board of Directors, and Mark H. Murphy represents the team as President and CEO.

5 This owner is not active in day-to-day operations.

6 Paul G. Allen, the Seahawks' most recent owner, died October 15, 2018 without any immediate next of kin. His younger sister Jody Allen is serving as executor of his estate.[2]
Kansas City Chiefs: Clark Hunt, one of four co-owning siblings (the others being Lamar Hunt Jr., Daniel Hunt and Sharon Munson), represents the team in league affairs.
New York Jets: Christopher Johnson is acting owner due to Robert's appointment as United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom.
Tampa Bay Buccanners:  Bryan Glazer represents the four co-owning siblings, including Edward Glazer, Joel Glazer and Darcie Kassewitz.
Tennessee Titans: Amy Strunk represents the five co-owning siblings -- two sisters (Smith), and the widow of their brother (Lewis), and his sons (the Adams brothers), all the children of founding owner Bud Adams.
Ownership restrictions
The NFL forbids religious groups, governments, and non-profit organizations owning a team. The NFL requires a controlling owner to hold at minimum a 30% stake in the team and forbids ownership groups of over 24 people, or any publicly traded corporations from purchasing NFL teams; one team, the Green Bay Packers, is exempt from this under a grandfather clause and is owned by shareholders. The Houston Texans are also grandfathered in for their home county–the Harris County, Texas government–which owns 5% of the team, as the rule forbidding governments from owning a team became effective in 2007. The NFL's constitution also forbids its owners from owning any other professional football teams, except for Arena Football League teams located in the NFL team's home market.  In addition, the controlling owners of NFL teams were previously only permitted to own major league baseball, basketball and hockey teams if they are in the NFL team's home market, or are not located in other NFL cities.[3] (Stan Kroenke, who owned hockey and basketball teams in Denver, was nonetheless unanimously allowed to buy the then-St. Louis Rams in 2010 and hold on to his Denver assets until 2015, and even then the Denver assets were transferred to his wife Ann.)[4] Soccer has been exempt from these restrictions since 1982, when the league lost a lawsuit challenging them filed by the original NASL stemming from the investments of Kansas City Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt and Elizabeth Robbie, the wife of Miami Dolphins owner Joe Robbie in NASL teams;[5] as a result, NFL owners have owned teams in MLS in other NFL markets. In October 2018, the NFL owners voted to relax the cross-ownership rule, allowing controlling NFL owners to own other professional teams within NFL markets.[6]
See also
History of the NFL Commissioner