| Robert Irsay |
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| national football league owners | |
| irsay, robert | |
| indianapolis colts | |
| 1923 births | |
| 1997 deaths | |
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Robert Irsay (born March 5 , 1923 in Chicago, Illinois — died January 18 , 1997 in Indianapolis, Indiana ,) was the longtime owner of the National Football League's Baltimore/Indianapolis Colts franchise. He died at age 73 of heart and kidney failure. Irsay was also the owner of the-then Los Angeles Rams who, in 1972 , essentially traded franchises with Carroll Rosenbloom , who owned the Colts franchise. In what some view as a controversial move, Irsay moved the Colts to Indianapolis, Indiana in the early morning hours of March 30 , 1984 . After Irsay's death, the Colts were inherited by his son, Jim Irsay, who currently serves as senior vice president. However, team president Bill Polian is, essentially, the person who runs the football side of the Indianapolis Colts. "THE MOVE" With negotiations between Robert Irsay and Baltimore County for a new, modern football stadium at an impasse, on March 29 , 1984 , the Maryland state legislature passed a law allowing the city of Baltimore to seize the Baltimore Colts under Eminent Domain (which city and county officials had previously threatened to do.) The next day, Irsay, fearing a dawn raid on the team's Owings Mills headquarters, quickly accepted the deal offered by the city of Indianapolis, and then contacted his good friend, John B. Smith, the CEO of the Mayflower Transit company and arranged for fifteen vans to hurriedly pack up the team's property and transport it to Indianapolis in the early hours of the morning. Thus, many Baltimore Colts fans awoke to the stunning news that they no longer had a football team. Irsay, who had a reputation in the city for being stingy and temperamental to begin with, was further excoriated by the Baltimore press and many fans as a coward and a Judas . However, Irsay's attorney, Michael Chernoff, defended what became colloquially known as "The Move:" "They (the Maryland state legislature) not only threw down the gauntlet, but they put a gun to his (Irsay's) head and cocked it and asked, 'want to see if it's loaded?' They forced him to make a decision that day." It has to be noted that the deal between the city of Indianapolis and the Colts was not nearly as lucrative as the deal the city of Baltimore offered. Irsay claimed that the new Hoosier Dome (now the RCA Dome) and the people of Indianapolis were the primary considerations in the move to Indianapolis. An ecstatic crowd in Indianapolis greeted the arrival of their new NFL team, and an estimated 143,000 season tickets were sold in just two weeks. However, the Colts' first game in the Hoosier Dome was a 21-14 loss to the New York Jets . According to associates, Robert Irsay seemed to change with the new environment. He became friendlier and more community-minded, donating to local charities. And even the strained relationship between Irsay and his son, Jim (the former president of the Indianapolis Colts,) seemed to warm a great deal. EXTERNAL LINK |
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