The Ilitch Sporting Empire of Detroit.

[Hammer]

Re: The Ilitch Sporting Empire of Detroit.

I had forgotten about Mr. Wilson. I think he owned the Lions before Ford did, or at least along side Mr. Ford in the 1950's.

 

[blockski]

Re: The Ilitch Sporting Empire of Detroit.

Here's the NFL list, from wikipedia:

Franchise↓ 	Owner↓ 	Year↑
Green Bay Packers 	Green Bay Packers, Inc. 	1923
Buffalo Bills 	Ralph Wilson** 	1960
Tennessee Titans 	Bud Adams** 	1960
Detroit Lions 	William Clay Ford, Sr. 	1964
Arizona Cardinals 	Bill Bidwill 	1972*
Oakland Raiders 	Al Davis† 	1976*
Chicago Bears 	Virginia Halas McCaskey† *** 	1983
Denver Broncos 	Pat Bowlen† 	1984
San Diego Chargers 	Alex Spanos† 	1984*
New Orleans Saints 	Tom Benson 	1985
Pittsburgh Steelers 	Dan Rooney*** 	1988
Dallas Cowboys 	Jerry Jones 	1989
Cincinnati Bengals 	Mike Brown*** 	1991
Carolina Panthers 	Jerry Richardson** 	1993
Jacksonville Jaguars 	Wayne Weaver** 	1993
New England Patriots 	Robert Kraft 	1994
Philadelphia Eagles 	Jeffrey Lurie 	1994
Tampa Bay Buccaneers 	Malcolm Glazer 	1995
Indianapolis Colts 	Jim Irsay 	1997
Seattle Seahawks 	Paul Allen 	1997
Washington Redskins 	Dan Snyder† 	1999
New York Jets 	Robert Wood Johnson IV 	2000
San Francisco 49ers 	Denise DeBartolo York and John York 	2000*
Cleveland Browns 	Randy Lerner *** 	2002
Houston Texans 	Robert C. McNair† ** 	2002
Atlanta Falcons 	Arthur Blank† 	2004*
Baltimore Ravens 	Steve Bisciotti† 	2004*
Minnesota Vikings 	Zygi Wilf† 	2005
New York Giants 	John Mara (50%)****
Steve Tisch (50%) 	2005
Kansas City Chiefs 	Clark Hunt†† *** 	2006
Miami Dolphins 	Stephen M. Ross† 	2008
St. Louis Rams 	Stan Kroenke* 	2010

And a lot of those dates are somewhat misleading. Clark Hunt and the KC Chiefs, for example - that's not really a change in ownership, since Hunt got the team from his dad, Lamar Hunt.

Kroenke is interesting with the Rams, since he owns a lot of other sports teams:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=5496516

But first he had to deal with NFL rules against ownership of major league franchises in other pro football cities. He owns the NBA's Denver Nuggets and NHL's Colorado Avalanche.

Kroenke agreed to turn over operational and financial control of those teams to 30-year-old son, Josh, by the end of the year. He must give up his majority stake in the teams by December 2014.

I did not know of the ban on other team ownership only applying to other NFL cities...