Odious NFL Owners – Analysis

In my last post, I looked at all 31 NFL owners to see, in detail, who might be possibly categorized as the worst. Now, let me tell ya, that was a lot of data. So, here is some of that information in a more digestible, summarized, graphical form.

Source of Income

Hard to believe, but did you know that over 75% of NFL owners inherited their wealth? Yup, not a lot of self-made men (or women) out there.

Of those who inherited, though, what percentage of them actually tried to make it on their own?

Once again, we’ve got a minority – 2/3 this time, - who did not. Note, though, that this covers quite a wide range of experience, from a year on Wall St. to starting multiple companies in unrelated industries.

Yup, that’s Jerry Jones (DAL)

Now, whether it was self-made or inherited, what was the particular industry where that income came from?

So, a lot of oil tycoons and developer types. Those that derive from sports, by the way, tend to represent the ancient families that actually started the NFL. In fact, a lot of those founders had been athletes themselves. 

George Halas (CHI)

Athletes

Which got me thinking, how many of the current owners actually played sports themselves?

Once again, it’s only a third. What’s surprising here, though, is that the number who played in college actually outnumber those who merely played in high school. Perhaps even more interesting, 4 of those owners – Jones (DAL), McNair (HOU), Kraft (NE) & Brown (CIN) – actually played D1 football. Now, that’s actually pretty impressive.

Yup, Robert Kraft!

Carpetbaggers

In addition to having played the game themselves, wouldn’t it be nice if the owners were locals too? I wonder how many were actually born and bred in the city where they would eventually own the local team?

Looks like we’ve got about 2/3 who came in from somewhere else. Most interestingly, would you believe that we have 2 – Wilf (MIN, Germany) & Khan (JAX, Pakistan) – who aren’t even native Americans?

Actually, that’s another Shahid Khan, a Pakistani actor

Other Teams

But back to sports … How many of these owners are real dabblers, rich enough to own more than one sports team?

It looks like we’ve got a little less than half who have so indulged. Our worst offenders – Kroenke (LAR) & Harris (WAS) – own 3 others. 

What’s really interesting here, though, is how popular soccer is, with 11 owners also purchasing teams playing that other brand of football. In fact, 4 of those teams are across the pond, in the English Premier League.

Manchester United, owned by the Glazers (TB)