One of the NFL’s few female owners on how to identify talent

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Colts owner and vice chairman Carlie Irsay-Gordon (left) and her father, Indianapolis Colts owner and CEO Jim Irsay (right), holding the Vince Lombardi Trophy after the Colts victory over the Chicago Bears in Super Bowl XLI. Former Colts head coach Tony Dungy in foreground.

Identifying talent and making the right hiring decisions are crucial to any organization. National Football League franchises are no exception. With the rise of computer-driven data analytics, the days of “gut decisions” made by scouts are long gone from the world of professional sports. But for the Indianapolis Colts, a better process for identifying talent is being created with insights from one of the NFL’s few female owners.

“Our business is a little bit different from [other organizations],” Carlie Irsay-Gordon, daughter of Colts owner and CEO Jim Irsay, told CNBC in a recent interview at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics conference. “I’m a third generation in the line of Colts owners, and [prior to this current arrangement] we sort of were just flying by the seat of our pants.”

Irsay-Gordon, one of the only women with a prominent role within the NFL’s ownership circle, said the Colts organization previously had values and a vision, but those elements came organically rather than as part of a set business objective. With a new generation of ownership at the franchise, the culture has evolved.