Every July, the National Football League asks its 32 teams to provide commissioner Roger Goodell with an updated franchise succession plan should an owner die.
Those planning documents are not public, and teams typically keep their plans private. The transition plan indicates whether ownership will be transferred to another family member or placed under a temporary trustee's control or the team will be sold.
Since plans might change from year to year, the annual updates reflect the owner's current intentions.
"They want to have an orderly transition, first of all, and they want it to be, as much as possible, managed by the family so the league doesn't have to get involved in the family disputes," an NFL league source told ESPN last year. "And then ideally you want to have someone on that succession plan letter that the other owners have come to know over the years."
Family members of owners often attend the NFL's annual meeting, where league staff, head coaches, general managers, team presidents and owners gather to conduct league business. The bonds and relationships help acquaint owners with one another's potential successors.
Article III of the league's constitution and bylaws, copies of which have appeared online, states that if an owner dies, "such membership or interest therein may be transferred to a member of the 'immediate family' of the deceased without requiring the consent or approval of the member of the League or the Commissioner." Immediate family is defined as a spouse, sibling, child or "any other lineal descendent of the deceased or donor."
When Detroit Lions owner William Clay Ford Sr. died in 2014, ownership was transferred to his wife, Martha Firestone Ford. In 2020, she transferred ownership to their daughter, current owner Sheila Ford Hamp. The Pittsburgh Steelers, Arizona Cardinals and New York Giants also have handed down their franchises to family members through multiple generations.
While the transitions can often go smoothly, legal challenges sometimes arise. In 2014, the Denver Broncos' then-owner, Pat Bowlen, placed the team in a trust after his diagnosis with Alzheimer's disease. Then-team president Joe Ellis was designated to run the franchise. The Broncos stated at the time that Bowlen's "long-term hope is for one of his children to run the Broncos at the appropriate time."
Family members sued to remove the trustees in 2018, before Bowlen's death. After Bowlen died in 2019, legal battles and fights between family members ensued for years until the team was sold to a group of buyers led by Walmart chief executive Rob Walton, daughter Carrie Walton Penner and her husband, Greg Penner, who operates as a co-owner of the club and as the Broncos' chief executive.
If a club is not handed down to a family member, the transfer or sale of a team must be approved by the finance committee and the commissioner and then be approved by at least three-fourths of the league's owners.
Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank told ESPN in 2023 that the NFL tries to find ways to maintain family ownership, which has been the league's succession history.
The other piece of ownership transfer, particularly in death, is the estate tax. Current federal estate tax law allows an exemption for up to $13.99 million per person, far less than what the valuation of a majority stake in any NFL franchise would cost. The Colts had a valuation of $4.8 billion in 2024, according to Forbes. If approved for the 2026 fiscal year, the proposed estate tax exemption would jump to $15 million.