By Andy Serwer
Here is a second installment of prominent business leaders we lost in 2025 ( here's the first), including a number of leading lights from the business of sports and a noted economics writer.
Paul Tagliabue (Nov. 9, Age 84)
A Rhodes scholar, president of his class, and a star basketball player at Georgetown University, where he captained the team, Tagliabue, a lawyer who practiced at Covington & Burling, would achieve great success and prominence in another sport, that being football. The commissioner of the National Football League for 17 years, Tagliabue had big shoes to fill when he replaced the more loquacious Pete Rozelle in 1989. But what the 6-foot-5-inch Tagliabue lacked in glibness he made up for in effectiveness, addressing nagging player/owner relations and TV contract issues. He oversaw the addition of four new teams to the league, games in Europe, and multiple franchise moves. He also led NFL responses to 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and Arizona refusing to establish a state holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr., as well as a paucity of diversity in the coaching ranks. "Tagliabue was a skilled litigator who preferred to let the owners work out their differences," writes Ken Belson in his book Every Day Is Sunday. Tarnishing his legacy, Tagliabue fought strongly against acknowledging that pro football caused brain injuries, which prevented him from being elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame on four occasions. (He was later voted in and apologized for his position.) Tagliabue's daughter Elizabeth is married to John D. Rockefeller V, son of former West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller and great-great grandson of John D. Rockefeller.
Jim Irsay (May 21, Age 65)
Irsay inherited ownership of the Indianapolis Colts from his father, Robert, who made his money in the HVAC business. He took over the team in 1997 after Robert died, becoming, at age 37, the NFL's youngest sole owner. Irsay, who was a walk-on football player himself at Southern Methodist University, was brash, outspoken, and just a little bit wild and crazy. He was also unarguably a very successful owner, with the Colts being one of the league's better teams during his tenure, winning 10 division titles with 18 playoff appearances and two Super Bowl appearances, and winning Super Bowl XLI with Peyton Manning as his quarterback. (Omaha!) The value of the team skyrocketed over the years, making Irsay a multibillionaire. Irsay didn't shy from controversy, arguing against Rush Limbaugh gaining ownership of an NFL team and for Dan Synder's removal as owner of the Washington Commanders. Irsay was also arrested on four felony counts, including possession of drugs and driving while impaired. (Charges were subsequently pleaded down to a pair of misdemeanors.) Irsay owned what Guitar Magazine called the "greatest electric guitar collection in the world," including axes owned by Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Jerry Garcia, Prince, and Les Paul. "So much of what we're about as a world, as humanity, is tied to music," Irsay told the magazine. "It's been that way ever since the cavemen were around the fire and they scrawled on the walls, they beat things -- there was always this feeling of self-expression."
Tom Hicks (Dec. 6, Age 79)
Hicks was an early player in the buyout game -- where he had his ups and downs -- and owned high-profile sport teams, including the Texas Rangers Major League Baseball club, the Dallas Stars National Hockey League team, and the storied Liverpool soccer team in Britain. He was more of a "buy and build" private-equity type (rather than slash and burn), and liked to say that he was expanding the buyout business beyond New York. Hicks, the son of a onetime theology professor, grew up in Port Arthur, Texas, went to the University of Texas, and started out buying radio and media businesses, then Dr Pepper and 7 Up, and later ventured into investments in everything from oil and gas to electronics to pet food. He led a number of buyout firms, including Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst. He had some success with his teams. The Stars won the Stanley Cup in 1999, and, during the 12-year period he owned the Rangers (from 1998 to 2010), the team won the American League West division three times and reached the World Series for the first time in 2010. But his teams would all slip away from him after the 2008 global financial crisis put his business interests under severe duress. Hicks was pals with George W. Bush, who lived adjacent to Hicks for a time in Dallas. "Tom was a close friend and a great partner. He dreamed big, and watching him bring the Stanley Cup here to Dallas was something that I will always cherish," said Dallas Cowboys owner, president, and general manager Jerry Jones.
George Foreman (March 21, Age 76)
A boxer who was a two-time heavyweight champion of the world and an Olympic gold medal winner, Foreman became equally known first as a terse enforcer and later as a jovial giant. And then there were his eponymous grills, for which he was a world champ in selling via ubiquitous TV commercials. George Foreman Grills, which he didn't invent, were made by Salton and its successor companies, which ended up paying Foreman hundreds of millions of dollars -- more than he made in his prodigious boxing career. A born-again Christian later in life, Foreman had 12 children, seven girls and five boys. And yes, he really did name all his sons George: George Jr., George III ("Monk"), George IV ("Big Wheel"), George V ("Red"), and George VI ("Little Joey"), writing on his website: "I named all my sons George Edward Foreman so they would always have something in common. I say to them, 'If one of us goes up, then we all go up together. And if one goes down, we all go down together!' "
Junior Bridgeman (March 11, Age 71)
Ulysses Lee "Junior" Bridgeman Jr. was an All-American basketball player at Louisville and was often the first man off the bench in his National Basketball Association career. Many said if the NBA Sixth Man of the Year award had existed when he played, Bridgeman would have been a shoo-in any number of times. But it was in retirement that Bridgeman would give Michael Jordan a run for his money. Bridgeman became interested in a Wendy's franchise, eventually buying it, then bought another, then another. He ended up with 450 fast-food restaurants, including over 160 Wendy's and 120 Chili's outlets, many of which he sold, and then he bought a Coca-Cola bottling business and a minority stake in the Milwaukee Bucks, the team he played with for a decade. He also owned Ebony and Jet magazines. Forbes recently estimated his net worth to be $1.4 billion, putting him in "rare air alongside Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, and LeBron James as the only NBA players with 10-figure fortunes."
Robert Samuelson (Dec. 13, Age 79)
An economics writer -- but no relation to Nobel Prize--winning economist Paul Samuelson -- who wrote for the Washington Post and Newsweek, Samuelson made economics understandable and interesting. No small thing there. He looked the part, though: usually disheveled, with a messy desk overloaded with papers. Samuelson won multiple journalism awards and wrote The Great Inflation and Its Aftermath. The editor of the Harvard Crimson in college, Samuelson had no particular predilection to be an economics reporter or even to cover business. He explained how he fell into his specialty after being hired by the Washington Post: "Only when I came down did Ben Bradlee, who was the editor at the time, ask me whether I would take a slot in the business section, which had just come open. I thought it wasn't a great idea to contradict my new boss, so I took it." Hank Gilman, who edited Samuelson at Newsweek during that magazine's heyday, recalls that that worked out well for readers. "I edited Sam [as he was known] for about five years in the '90s," Gilman says. "He was, without doubt, one of the great columnists of my generation. But what set him apart was his ability to make a case by actually reporting. You know, coming up with facts to back up an argument. And I was also lucky enough to have two other Hall-of-Famers just like him on the team -- Allan Sloan and Jane Bryant Quinn."
Write to Andy Serwer at andy.serwer@barrons.com
This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 26, 2025 03:00 ET (08:00 GMT)
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