NWSL owner passes audition to take over family’s $12bn NFL team in middle of drought

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Gotham FC is dominating the NWSL in a way the New York Giants could only dream of.The defending champion saw a franchise record win streak snapped Sunday, but still tops the table approaching the business end of the season.Carolyn Tisch Blodgett has showed off her skills in the NWSLGettyCarolyn Tisch Blodgett — a co-owner of the G-Men — bought into Gotham in 2023 and has ushered in an era of success, hinting at a potential bright future if she turns her attention to the NFL full time.Tisch Blodgett is a strategic advisor to the Giants, but her main focus is the NWSL and her investment firm Next Three Ventures.Her portfolio includes League One Volleyball, TMRW Sports [TGL], TGL’s Los Angeles Golf Club, the U.S. Sail GP team, and the Women’s Lacrosse League. John Mara is the Giants’ president and CEOThe 71-year-old’s grandfather Tim founded the team in 1925, before Bob Tisch bought half of it for $75 million in 1991.“People laughed him out of town… people thought it would be faster to burn money,” Tisch Blodgett said of her grandfather to Front Office Sports in 2025. “It was a hobby, no one thought of it as an investment.” The G-Men won two Super Bowls with Tom Brady‘s arch nemesis Eli Manning, but have just one postseason win since the second of those triumphs in 2011.Despite poor results, the franchise was valued at over $10 billion when the Koch Family took a minority stake last year and Forbes now makes it the third most valuable in the NFL at $12 billion.Fresh off her success in the corporate world, Tisch Blodgett could be the person to finally allow the Giants to tap into the limitless potential of a historic franchise in a dominant media market.Her family connections make her an ideal candidate and as auditions go, the 40-year-old’s time with Gotham FC could hardly have gone better.Mara is the public face of the ownershipGettyTisch Blodgett has thrived in businessGettyTisch Blodgett launched Next Three Ventures in 2021 after leaving her job as global head of marketing for Peloton.“At its core, the idea with Next Three was really meant to make us better owners of the Giants,” she told FOS. “It was meant to make us understand what the future of sports would look like, what the future of fandom looks like, and how technology would play a role in all of that.”Kraft Analytics Group CEO Jessica Gelman — a long-time associate — thinks the Giants would be in good hands.“There’s building a brand and then there’s growing a brand. Rarely do people have the skill set to do both,” she explained. ”But if you look at Carolyn’s path, she uniquely has that ability. “She could lead the Giants into the future, whenever that might make sense to do.”That is not to say that the co-owner would completely rip up Mara’s playbook having worked alongside him for years and learned a lot.NFL's Greatest......Ranking the top 10......Quarterbacks of all-time – Can anyone better Tom Brady?Wide receivers of all-time – Does Randy Moss or Jerry Rice come out on top?Running backs of all-time – Stacking Jim Brown, Barry Sanders, Walter Payton, Emmitt Smith and moreTight ends of all-time – How does Travis Kelce compare?“I got the phone numbers of all 26 players on the team, whether they were staying or leaving, and called each one myself,” she told FOS. “I introduced myself as the new owner and said, ‘While I can’t speak for what happened in the past, I’m going to do things differently.’“I learned that from John Mara. He has always treated every employee in the building like a family.“That’s part of why it’s hard for people to leave the Giants. He makes you feel like you’re part of something bigger, even in losing years.”John Harbaugh is looking to bring the glory days backGettyThe Giants went 4-13 in 2025, but there are some building blocks in place with quarterback Jaxson Dart shining as a rookie.Mara has taken a step back as he battles cancer, but was involved in the decision to hire John Harbaugh.“I can tell you that John looked great when I saw him three or four weeks ago,” beat write Gary Myers said on the Bleav in Giants podcast. “He really looked great. I hope that’s an indication that things are going well for him health-wise.”There is no timeline on Tisch Blodgett’s ambitions to become the face of the franchise, but she is giving herself the best chance possible to hit the ground running when she takes the job she was born to do and joins the growing cohort of female NFL leaders.