Carlie Irsay-Gordon: Stewarding a Legacy Shaping the Future

0:00I attended my first meeting in 2002 when I was a sophomore or junior in college, and I think even since then, I think you have to do a lot of listening, and I think even once you're in leadership, I think there's a lot of power to listening. the better you listen, I think the better questions you ask. But I think if you have something to say that's additive, you should speak up. And I think it's, you know, I think the committee composition, I forgot to mention the 32 equity committee too, which I really enjoy, like it's a perfect example, you know, with David Tepper and Josh Harris, their experience is very talented financiers.

0:38And it's been great to have their perspective, you know, even though that's, you know, sports wasn't their core business. I think having that mix of perspectives and ages and genders, I think just makes, you know, the work better and the outcome of the work better. Few franchises in the NFL carry as much family history as the Indianapolis Colts. For over half a century, the Ursae name has been synonymous with the horseshoe. But with the passing of longtime owner Jim Ursae in May of 2025, and the ascendancy of his daughter, Carly Ursae Gordon, the stewardship of that legacy has moved into a new era.

1:17Carly is now the NFL's second youngest control owner, but she's not a newcomer. Since walking away from a doctoral program in clinical psychology in 2008 to join the family business, she has been in the trenches, from sitting in on coaches' meetings to listening to the game day headset feed to better understand the variables of on-field success. This conversation between Carly and SBJ's Ben Fisher took place at SBJ's Axis Drive Conference in Indianapolis on September 24th. Carly and Ben discuss how she balances the core of the family legacy with a modern entrepreneurial vision. They talk about her penchant for questioning convention and how she views her role not just as an owner, but as a steward of a community institution.

1:59I'm Dan Coffin with Sports Business Journal. Let's go on stage. The NFL has such a long tradition of owner leadership, owners really being involved in the business of the league and not just oversight um you're relatively new to the role what how do you fit in to that ownership leadership what's the best way you can contribute to the league not just the Colts well I think I'm fortunate to like although it makes me feel a little older now I'm in an interesting part of my career when you're kind of going 20 plus you kind of think about the things that you did and you're like oh that was 15 years ago that was um but I kind of look at it as a bridge you know between the old and the new because you know even though my dad being in the ceo and the controlling controlling owner role he it's a family business so you know i remember i just joined the cec committee which is in charge of you know our labor negotiations and i remember as a kid you know him working through free agency in the early 90s and i was you know in middle school at the time so i think there was a lot of learning that just happened if anyone else is a part of a family business there's a lot of learning I don't want to say by osmosis but in some ways there is but I think that you know when I was on my became on my first committee which was digital media and it's morphed morphed into oh no and now it's kind of oh no has gone away and now it's the media committee I think I enjoy the committees because a lot of the real work goes on there and I think that my perspective adds a lot of value and it's It's what I love to do, so it makes it easy.

3:37So you're on three committees now. Is that a full slate, or is there room for more? I'm always up for more. That's an opportunity. Roger says, if he wants you to do it, you'll do it. Yeah. No, it's being on the CEC, being on the media committee, being on the stadium and fan conduct committee, and then I'm on a business working group, which those are – I think that's been a good add that the league's done more of those over the years. So you already touched on this a little bit. You're new, but you're not. You know, you're new in the position, but you've been around for a long time. There's a precedent in the NFL that, you know, when owners are new, they kind of, you know, keep their mouth shut and learn for a little while.

4:20But then more recently, as the big money and evaluations have come in and a lot of very senior people from other industries have come into the league, it's changed a little bit where people tell me there's too much at stake to stay quiet if you've got something to say and you think it's you believe in it speak up um so where does that where do you shake out on that front do you feel like you you still need to be demure in any way or are you all on equal footing now I mean I would say I attended my first meet my first meeting in 2002 and I was a sophomore junior in college and and I think even since then I think you have to do a lot of listening and I think even once you're in leadership I think there's a lot of power to listening the better you listen I think the better questions you ask but I think if you have something to say that's additive you should speak up and I think it's you know I think the committee composition I forgot to mention the 32 equity committee too which I really enjoy like is a perfect example, you know, with David Tepper and Josh Harris, their experience is very talented financiers, and it's been great to have their perspective, you know, even though that's, you know, sports wasn't their core business.

5:36I think having that mix of perspectives and ages and genders, I think just makes, you know, the work better and the outcome of the work better. Mm-hmm. Now, I mean, when everything is going really well, that's what the true believers around the league say is the secret sauce is that you've got Josh Harris and David Tepper and Avanad Khosla and you've got the people that have literally been running a football team since their grandfathers were young. You know, when that works well, it works great. Do you perceive much tension in those worldviews? I don't, I don't, I mean, I think it depends on what kind of tension you mean then.

6:14I think certainly I believe that conflict is healthy. I think, the best people that you work with, you don't want to work with a lot of yes men or women. I think you want to be able to have conversations and discourse to come to the best solution. And I think that that can come from a lot of different places. So I think having the mix of, you could say in some ways, you have these, I think our league is very successful for a lot of reasons, but one of them is a lot of our rules with the hard cap and the competitive equity that, you know, you can't just pay luxury tax and spend a gazillion dollars on a roster.

6:58I think that has really made the competitive equity and the parity and just the quality of our game just as one example. I mean, I'm sure there's more, but I think that sometimes you might have some people that feel differently about that, but I think ultimately most membership agrees that this model's worked for a really long time. certainly that's the first time that's the first thing anyone says when I ask them these sorts of questions they say well hey we don't want to mess up with working well so clearly we want to grow but not not lose what we've already got so it's um it'll be interesting to see that over time as more new owners come in um let's let's let's uh bring the focus back home a little bit here um for the Colts um same question but two different time frames most important business concern to you now on a six-month horizon and then on a six-year horizon?

7:51Six-month horizon. So, I mean, obviously we haven't had the best start to this year, but I think we still have a lot of games to play. And, you know, I think one of the pros and cons of playing a sport professionally is there's always a winner and there's always a loser, and very rarely ties, but no one really wants to tie. So at least I know our team never wants to tie. But I think that, you know, obviously there's that piece. We want to, we're always striving to put, you know, the best product on the field. And, you know, that's part of what makes our sport entertaining and our fans engage better with us.

8:33But I think also longer term and shorter term, I think, you know, there's a couple of our folks sitting in the front row. I think they do a great job of being, you know, I think it's not just a change just to change, but I think it's always looking at, you know, my dad always used to say, give the fans what they want. And so I think that's kind of where it goes into the listing is as consumer behaviors evolved, you know, the whole second screen phenomenon, people want to be more digitally connected. I'm sure this wouldn't be a good sports business journal conference if you probably didn't talk about AI, but I believe that one of our biggest moats that protects us from AI is, and we all learned during the COVID experiment, that people want to be together and they want to experience things together and they want to cheer together and be sad together when things don't go the right way.

9:27So I think just continuing to lean into what those different cohorts of our fans want. And, you know, there's a lot of themes that are emerging, right? I think this digital age is, you know, those of us that remember only having cable or like the Disney Channel. And I remember having to wake up at 7 a.m. if I wanted to watch Gummy Bears when I was a little kid. And it's like, if I missed it, you know, well, I was kind of as well. But I think now I think everyone is used to having, even if they find them creepy, they like them, the algorithms that serve up the content that they want to see and things like that.

10:04And I think that there's a way for us to get better and utilize. Those are a lot of tools that I think enable us to do a better job. And even at scale across the league, I think we're looking at that too. From a general media strategy standpoint, yes, we've got the live game rights. That's the big heavy hitter. But how would we reach everybody else in all the other many ways we might reach a potential fan? That's what you mean. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the remit of that media committee just gets more and more complicated with every passing day. doesn't it? I mean, you know, you are the second youngest control owner by my math.

10:42You know, do we make too much of these generational differences sometimes? I mean, any older guys ever say, what's the key to young fans? Or like, are you viewed as the whisper for Gen Z? I know you're not Gen Z, you're a millennial like me. But, you know, like, Do they lean on you for that? Are you seen in that way? Well, I think you could say it's about age, and that certainly gives you a different perspective. But I think it's the same thing whether being a woman or being a minority or what business you grew up in. I think it's good to have those perspectives. It's the same thing that we want in our office.

11:26It's not diversity for diversity's sake. It's more because that affords an organization to have the cognitive diversity, which I think ultimately, because we want our funnel, we want our fans to be everyone that's here. So I think that it's important to have people that come from different walks of life and different experiences because that's going to give you a better outcome at the end of the day. I think there was a Gallup number recently that the lowest number of young people in a long time listed American football as their primary sport. Do you see that in your numbers with the Colts franchise?

12:04And, you know, what do you do about that? You mean like aging? Well, about, you know, maybe there's some reason to believe in the data that the younger generation doesn't like football as much as most of us in this room do. I don't know if it's that they don't like football. I think one of the biggest things that we've seen change is when you, I think, when generationally, like I think, I don't want to be ageist, but you typically rooted for someone and if you ask, like, how'd you become a fan? And it's like, well, my dad and his dad and I grew up rooting for the Packers or wherever. I think now one of the biggest things we've seen change is that people have, you know, they might be a fan of a player and watch our game because they love Jonathan Taylor, but then they're a Buffalo Bills fan.

12:53I think that's something that's more normal. And I think, you know, when I think we met in Boston, we talked about, you know, the one-to-one project that we're all working to unify our data sources and, you know, updating BV1 because, you know, it was a little outdated with the advent of the internet. Now you can have fans all over the place. So then I think we want every club to reach their fans wherever they are. And that's kind of what, you know, that sort of digital age has done is it's everything can kind of be at scale. It's not like, you know, the other day in the media committee, we were talking about, you know, like DirecTV back in the day.

13:32You have to think about churn as an example because, you know, back when you had a satellite dish, if you wanted to get rid of your DirecTV, you had to call someone to come out and take your satellite dish down. Now it's like if you decide you don't want to subscribe to YouTube anymore, you just click a button. So I think that's something that we have to be really vigilant about because I don't want to say that people are less loyal or fickle, but they, you know, the stakes are a little bit higher. you need to make sure you know i think we were very mindful like we had an outage with some of our with our nfl plus product for the first hour in week one and i think we have to make sure that we're really vigilant to get those people back and make sure that they know that that's not going to get messed up again because there's just also the kind of the battle for consumer time there's so many choices now that's a really good point both literally and how easy it is to unsubscribe and in just the world just it's so easy to be distracted even if you don't even mean to be distracted so totally that's that's a really good point let's talk a little bit about bricks and mortar I know we're not quite to the point of major decisions on stadiums and practice facilities but clearly you've given a fair bit of thought to it as we approach that so so maybe for people who haven't been reading my work or the Indianapolis local papers quickly summarize the time frame you're working with here and then what you're thinking about the future of the facilities for the Colts.

14:58Yeah, so we are, we've engaged two different architects. We're more kind of at the conceptual level now, but I think we're, it's very exciting because we've been able to amass some property downtown around the stadium, and it's crazy to think that our stadium is about to be 20 years old, and I think there's probably two, well, probably three tranches that we're looking at. And what, you know, the first one is Lucas Oil has amazing bones. It's aged so well. I remember when the Ravens were here before talking to Sashi, their president, he was like, gosh, I can't believe this building is that old.

15:36Because I think the original architect's just an homage to kind of that field house vibe and our basketball history and I think the you know it's a great place to play a game but also I think speaking about fans and how consumer behaviors changed you know the average stadium now has 19 different products at the gate level and we have well below that I think eight is what they said so I think that's that's an area where you have different groups of fans that want to experience a game You have the AVIDs, you have people, more and more, it's about that social experience and how do you integrate that so that people can still enjoy the game but then be together, as opposed to, I think back even when we were in Baltimore, Memorial Stadium, it's like everyone's just facing the field and you don't get up and you just sit there the whole time.

16:33And I think that's really evolved. I think the other piece too is elevating our food and beverage. As an example, I think the Rams have 62 live fire kitchens, and I think we have two. So I think there are just things that are probably not sexy, our video boards and things like that, that a lot of the stuff, the guts, just making sure IT and the technology pieces are upgraded. And so I think that's, but that's all, we kind of know where we need to go, which is a good thing. I would say the other piece with our facility is it served us well, but, you know, we've been there since 1985. You mean your practice facility at quarters, not the stadium.

17:16Yes, our practice facility, sorry, not the stadium. And the people here that are from our organization, I call it the quilt because we just keep adding on and adding on, and we have people that are actually literally their office is a closet, and so we need to, you know, I think it's served us well, but I think the way that even on the player side too, the way that we practice and the way that we work has evolved a lot in 40 years. So I think there's a lot of synergies that is really intriguing to me to be, what can we do if we were downtown by our stadium? And how can we use that as an additional catalyst for the neighborhood around our stadium?

17:57Because the third piece would be looking at just the neighborhood around Lucas Oil. and I think we were fortunate to lock in steel prices when we started building it in 2005, but unfortunately the recession happened and I think people thought, you know, by default development would happen and so I think we need to really be, you know, invest and I think there's a, I'm excited to say, like even with the Pacers, and I know they've done a lot of things, but I think the rising, rising rises all the ships and I think that we need to, it has to be you know obviously the city and the state and the CIV but it also needs to be really a coalition of leaders that are willing to say you know downtown you know this is the capital of our state you know it's really amazing what a lot of the suburbs around you know the donut suburbs around Indianapolis but to say like I think our our downtown area We need to reinvest in that.

19:01So the buzzwords, mixed-use sports district, I think we all kind of got a vision of some restaurants, maybe a hotel. But it could be a lot of different things. Do you have a sense of what makes the most sense or what there is demand for, or are we too early on in that process to talk about the non-football elements of that? Yeah, I mean, like you said, the buzzwords, I think that's certainly an element. But I think one of the things, at least for us specifically, with our stadium footprint is we're sort of on that south side and we've got this big rail exchange that's a little bit of a psychological barrier.

19:35And I think even just around downtown, I think what's exciting as just a general population is that we're all, and I don't know if it's from GOP ones or what it's from, but I think we're all being healthier. We're being more active and so that means from a pedestrian transit standpoint we want streets that look welcoming that are well lit that maybe have a couple trees and it's not just some concrete jungle so I think there's a lot of really how do we tie specifically to the area around Lucas Oil how do we tie that better to the rest of the downtown footprint because I think you know when I lived in Chicago ago as an example it's like there's a lot of density there and I think we have a lot of pockets of really cool you know traction yards a lot of stuff what you know what um Elanco's doing at One Health you've got where the pacers are you've kind of got um I mentioned the Circle City and you've got the Bottleworks District but they're kind of like it's like a segmented bug they're not really connected very well so I think our hope too is when we start to endeavor to really lean in and put nuts and bolts into the project that we want to do is that it's going to kind of serve a broader plan for downtown footprint that's going to kind of integrate all those things together so that people can come down and feel safe to walk around and you know maybe go to the stadium and then walk down to mass ave and not have it just be like well we got to park here and then we're gonna have to drive over there and i think that's something that's really going to help our downtown area And that's a good line of conversation to lean into a public-private partnership.

21:19So maybe this goes without saying, but that's what we're talking about here, right? Some sort of significant involvement from a political entity in their funding. Absolutely, yes. Yeah, okay. And that brings us to another aspect of the legacy. When you and I last met, you talked a lot about the original founding story of the Indianapolis Colts, that this team was brought here somewhat on spec because the city could be a better place for the football team. All of these questions about the design and what your new developments look like are driven by revenue and customer needs, but I mean, tell us a little bit about that role that that story from when you were two or three years old plays in your mind.

21:58Well, so I was fortunate enough to be alive to meet Mayor Hudnett, who was the mayor that basically built a stadium with no guarantee that an NFL team would come. And I think his vision was that, you know, if we get an NFL team to come to our market, it's really going to boost the, just the kind of je ne sais quoi and the whole, like, the image of Indianapolis. I think that, you know, Hoosiers used to kind of be this more, I don't want to say a pejorative term, but it just didn't really mean, you know, of well-educated and innovative, it kind of meant something different. And I think he had this vision and with no guarantee that it would come and build a stadium.

22:44And so to me, that was always very inspiring. And I think he was just, he was a wonderful man too personally. But I think then, you know, my dad, I like to think that really my dad made, through his legacy, he made the Colts relevant by bringing a championship, you know, to Indianapolis. And I think he hoped that we'd win three in a row, which was probably didn't make coaches and GMs feel good at the time. But, you know, so I think having two Super Bowl appearance and making them relevant, I really see as the next generation that, you know, we want to be we want to make the Colts timeless. And we want to make them iconic and we want to finish what my dad started.

23:28and I think part of that is also, it's not just the performance on the field, but it's also the, you know, what we started and finished with Lucas Oil Stadium. It's an amazing building, like we said, amazing bones. But I think we want to finish what we started around that area because, you know, if Ben and I were going to meet up, you know, right now, Sunday, we'd have to, like, meet at the Napa Arto parts, you know, thing, and then hit up the, you know, commercial construction employment agency and then go to the game. And I probably don't have any craft cocktails there, so you might not be interested in going there.

24:04So, you know, I feel like it's like we just need to, it's, I think it's just such an opportunity that's so ripe for, and I think the timing is really good because I think a lot of leaders in our community and a lot of leaders, you know, in politics too, see that like this is, it's time to really fix this and get this right. Well, I want to come back to your father and legacy, but a good question from the audience as we talk about development. How do you see private equity in this situation, both generally for the NFL, but also for the team? Is this something you would anticipate pursuing at some point?

24:42it's certainly something that we would look at it's definitely a tool but I think you know I think at the league level I think one of the good things about it is you know other leagues were doing it for a long time and I think one of the things that I think we might be a little bit more conservative but I think you know Roger and his team did a really good job I mean it was a three year process just making sure we structured it in a way that was what was best for the league I don't think that's something private equity we're necessarily looking at now, particularly as a franchise, but certainly we start to look at the stack of how we do this development downtown.

25:25I mean, that's certainly something that we'd probably consider then because I think it's just another option that owners have because franchise values are going up, stadium construction costs are going up, and those are all expensive endeavors. And just to orient everybody on the time frame here, it's early, but not too early to be talking about this. Your lease is up in 35? Correct. Okay. So you can think back from there and see where we are in that process. So we've got a few minutes left. And, you know, you mentioned Jim and reporters miss him. I know you miss him. How did the transition occur so seamlessly?

26:03so it's easier said than done to keep a family a team within a family with evaluations as far as anyone as far as I know everything was very smooth here what why was that why was it so smooth when that time came so I would say one thing is I think you know succession planning in any form or fashion is something that should always be thought about and I think that you know my dad was a big proponent He liked that I was a good student, but he always said, I'm a proponent for the school of life. And I feel like our business, you kind of just have to be thrown into it and gain experience. And I think he basically afforded, you know, all three of my sisters were able to just, you know, get in the mud and, you know, learn how a franchise operates at a very young age.

26:58And so I think it, you know, it was difficult to lose. you know it's a little bit of a bad multiple relationship where it's your boss and it's your parent and it's you know it's that that made it tough but I think having the support from the people in our organization the support from the community and having a plan um for how things would work after that I think just made it made it more seamless you had a plan and you were around You were so familiar with the team and the team familiar with you that it wasn't as dramatic a moment as it might have been otherwise. Yeah. Yeah. So a couple of follow-ups from the audience on some of the conversation around development.

27:41There's two questions that are sort of the same about affordability, and one of them is the tailgating experience. If you build this great development around the stadium, tailgating is something fans love and believe in. How do you maintain those organic things that might not be as great on the revenue side, but still are really important to the fan experience? So I would say kind of when I was talking about pedestrian transit, I think one of the things that we also really need to think about is just, I don't know if anyone's been to see a Cubs game, but I think having open areas and green spaces for people to be able to enjoy and certainly parking is something too that you know I think we always have to think about from when people leave basically from when they leave their house to when they get there and then when they get back to their house so I think we have to ingress and egress is something we're always thinking about and making sure yeah so tailgating is important then we've got to look at that and make sure that we're still making those opportunities available for fans because some people want to do that some people may want to go you know to a bar or restaurant before or they may want to go in early and get food and beverage in the stadiums I again like I think having that optionality and really getting a sense you know that's kind of going to be our next step is really from a feasibility not just a feasibility but just what really drilling in on what our market and what our fans want that they don't have now and what would enhance their experience.

29:16I think we're going to be really intentional and diligent in making sure we understand that as deeply as possible. So we have talked about business now for half an hour. You are maybe best known to the NFL world as an owner who is particularly engaged in football. Over time, when it comes time to really get into the weeds on a stadium project or this mixed use, Do you anticipate that needing to change, or can you do both? Can you sit in the position meetings and plan a stadium renovation, or over time do you anticipate your orientation needing to evolve? Well, I think anyone in a leadership role, I mean, it's always going to evolve.

29:54So I think certainly that's – I think you always take stock every year on what your priorities need to be and where your time is best served, and delegating can be a tough thing sometimes as to, but I think ultimately you just have to think about where can I serve our franchise best? And I think, you know, certainly the, you know, there's going to be a lot of time that's going to need to go into this project because it's going to be a big project and it's really important, I think, not just for our franchise, but it's really important for our city to make sure we're supporting the economic development that, you know, our city should have.

30:32and that was part of what Mayor Hudnut's vision was. And I think we've been able to show, and a lot of other cities have followed in our footsteps, that the Sports Tourism Convention Center, it affords a lot of economic impact to our city, and I think it's going to continue to be that way, and we want to make sure we're helping to be a catalyst for that. Great, great. Well, I know you've got a lot of years of being an owner left, so we'll watch closely as that evolves, and we watch what happens both on the field in the short term and in the city over the long term. I'm sorry to say it, but we're out of time.

31:07So thank you so much, Carly Ursae-Gordon. How about a round of applause? That was Ben Fisher and Carly Ursae-Gordon recorded at SBJ's Axis Drive Conference in Indianapolis. In an era where family-owned teams often face internal friction during successions, the Colts have moved forward with a unified front dedicated to keeping the team in the family and the family in Indianapolis. With major decisions on the horizon regarding a new headquarters and the long-term future of their stadium footprint, Carly's strategy over the coming years will shape the franchise and the city for decades to come. If you haven't had a chance to read Ben Fisher's full profile on Carly, you can check it out at sportsbusinessjournal.com.

31:45We've dropped a link in the description. Thank you for joining us for this episode of SBJ On Stage. I'm Dan Kaufman with Sports Business Journal. We're back in two weeks with another conversation from the stage with leaders shaping the sports business. Until then, stay tuned and stay ahead. This is On Stage.