Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Dustin Rowles | Celebrity | November 24, 2023
Folks who have seen their property values increase since the pandemic have nothing on the Indianapolis Colts franchise, which was purchased by Robert Irsay for around $20 million in 1972 after he sold his heating and ventilation business. The Colts are now worth about $4.5 billion.
Jim Irsay inherited the Colts after his father’s death and, like his father, he is one of the worst owners in the NFL: He’s erratic, tempestuous, unpredictable, and honestly, not very good at his job. To wit: last year, he fired one of the most popular coaches in the league and replaced him with Jeff Saturday, a former player whose only head coaching experience was as a high school coach, where he wasn’t particularly good. A bad season got much worse after that. This year, he played chicken with his star running back’s contract and lost, but not before probably costing the team a win or two.
Irsay also has a history of addiction, which is fair enough: He may be a wealthy nepo baby who has never had to do an honest day’s work in his life, but his brother had a disability and died in 1999 and his sister died in a car accident in 1971.
In 2014, Irsay was arrested for a DUI. He could not pass a field sobriety test, and police found drugs in his car. The arrest came two weeks after Irsay’s alleged mistress died of an overdose in a house purchased for her by Irsay. Irsay was suspended by the NFL and attended rehab.
That DUI arrest came up again this week because of a Real Sports profile on Irsay, who claimed he was not intoxicated but was recovering from hip surgery (the evidence strongly suggests otherwise). In the interview, Irsay says that he pled to a misdemeanor to make the charge go away, and claimed that he was targeted by the police because he is a “rich, white billionaire.”
“If I’m just the average guy down the block,” he told HBO, “they’re not pulling me in, of course not.”
“I don’t care what it sounds like. It’s the truth … I could give a damn what people think how anything sounds or sounds like. The truth is the truth and I know the truth.”
ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith, who rants for a living, had a field day on ESPN’s First Take.
“He doesn’t think about anything else, he just thinks about himself because he’s an entitled old brat,” Smith said. That’s really what it comes down to. And in the end, he’s lucky that he’s a national football league owner because they print money for crying out loud. You’ve got to be the stupidest person in the world to not make money as an NFL owner in this day and age.”
Smith’s co-host, Molly Qerim, had a few words of her own.
“What’s frustrating is his comments, exemplify exactly what people think — NFL owners are detached,” she said. “Just a total lack of awareness of their privilege and the flippancy of how they discuss their privilege. He came off like he’s a victim. And that anyone who has had as many opportunities as he has had share just by virtue of his name, the family he was raised in, and the color of his skin — like it just bothered me on a lot of levels.”
Irsay, on Twitter, took a few shots at ESPN, threatening to sue the network (for what? Who knows? That’s just what billionaires do when they feel threatened).
“1st take,your gonna get your ass Sued,because there was NO Alcohol,No illegal Drugs/ $29,000 dollars is low for me to be carrying in ,2014 arrest/I give away $2000-$10,000 dollars to the homeless and needed on the street,All the time and pass it on,making the world better,” Irsay posted.
“Dnd on 1st Take,the Woman that preceded Stephen A … ” he continued. “how dare you pretend to know me; I don’t know your name and I don’t care to. If my Black Mother Dorthy was still alive … you’d be in some big Hot Water! You are mean and ugly. Your a Nothing Burger”
It’s unclear who Dorthy is and whether Irsay is using her as cover to attack a Black woman on ESPN, but Irsay lived with his wealthy white parents growing up, so you can draw your own conclusions. However, based on a subsequent tweet, it sounds like Dorthy was a “Black Mom” to Irsay’s children, too.
Also, “$29,000 is not a lot of money to be carrying around for me” is not the defense he might think it is.
