Growing up in the Indianapolis Colts family business sounds cool until you realize the family business is getting roasted by strangers every Sunday. That’s basically the childhood story of Carlie Irsay-Gordon, who recently opened up about what it was like growing up with her granddad owning the Colts and her dad serving as the general manager.
Most kids inherit old furniture or weird family recipes. She inherited angry football fans and emotional damage from sports radio callers. And honestly? The trauma started early.
Irsay-Gordon revealed that when she was in third grade, she overheard her “best friend” in the school bathroom trashing Colts leadership because the team was terrible. Imagine being eight years old, sitting quietly in a bathroom stall, just trying to survive elementary school, and suddenly hearing someone say your family runs a football circus.
That’s not a childhood memory, that’s an ESPN documentary.
The Colts back then were struggling hard. Fans were frustrated, the team was losing, everybody had opinions, and apparently, even elementary school kids were breaking down front-office failures between math class and recess.
“If you’re old enough to remember, the ’80s were not so great around here,” Irsay-Gordon said, referencing a period when her grandfather, Bob Irsay, was the team’s owner and her father, Jim Irsay, was its general manager. The Colts had just two winning seasons between 1980 and 1989.
“I was in third grade,” she continued. “It was probably 1987. And I’ll never forget it … I thought she was my best friend. I hear her talking to this other girl. And this other girl was saying, ‘The Irsays should just get the hell out of here. What are they even doing? My dad says they’re losers.’ And [my friend] was like, ‘Yeah, maybe they are.’
“And I just remember thinking, ‘Oh my gosh.’ This was my best friend!”
Now as CEO and principal owner, Irsay-Gordon sits in one of the hottest seats in the NFL. Every draft pick gets analyzed like a government conspiracy, every quarterback gets judged after three throws, and every loss turns social media into a digital bonfire.
"We're understanding what our fans want. … I think there's a way that we can serve each one of those groups and make sure that they're having an amazing time."
Indianapolis Colts owner Carlie Irsay-Gordon joins the @PatMcAfeeShow and talks about the fan experience 🏈 pic.twitter.com/xWzqxbeprA
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) March 30, 2026
Welcome to the NFL, where fans think they could run the franchise better from their couch while holding buffalo wings.
But her story does show something important: owners and executives may live differently, but they still hear the criticism, sometimes loudly, sometimes publicly, and sometimes through a bathroom stall wall in third grade.
