Eli Manning Would Be Interested in Having a Minority NFL Ownership Stake

The Giants aren't for sale, but if the team was, the Giants' all-time passing record holder would be interested in a minority ownership stake.

Nov 10, 2024; Harrison, New Jersey, USA; NJ/NY Gotham FC minority owner Eli Manning looks on before a 2024 NWSL Playoffs quarterfinal match against Portland Thorns FC at Red Bull Arena. / Lucas Boland-Imagn Images

Imagine owning a small percentage of the New York Giants.

Retired quarterback Eli Manning has, and would even be willing to make such an investment, if the current team co-owners, the Mara and Tisch families, were willing to sell him a small piece of the action.

“It’s definitely something of interest,” Manning told Alex Sherman of CNBC Sports. “There’s probably only one team I’d be interested in pursuing, and it’s the one I played for for 16 years, and it’s local and makes the most sense, but we just got to figure out if they would ever sell a little bit or how that might happen for the Giants.”

Manning, one of the most beloved figures in franchise history given his two Super Bowl championships and his ironman streak–he never missed a game in his 16-year career due to injury–has a small part-time role with the team as is in which he has dabbled in a little bit of everything from a marketing perspective. 

He is also the star of the team’s wildly popular Eli Manning Show, which just completed its fourth season, and he co-hosts The Manningcast with his older brother Peyton through their Omaha Productions company, the program airing during select Monday Night Football broadcasts. 

The Pro Football Hall of Fame finalist and team Ring of Honor member was voted as the eighth top Giants player of all time in the team’s special 100th-anniversary list of the top 100 players in franchise history, for whom he also owns most of the team’s passing records.

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Manning, if he ever were to manage getting a piece of the Giants frnachise, would follow in former adversary Tom Brady's footsteps. Brady, whose NEw England Patriots fell twice to Manning's Giants in the Super Bowl, currently has a minority ownership interest in the Las Vegas Raiders.

The Giants were founded by the Mara family in 1925 by Timothy Mara, the grandfather of current Giants team president John Mara. Tim Mara passed in 1959, the ownership of the team he founded for just $500, passing on to his two sons, Wellington (John’s father) and Jack. 

When Jack died of cancer in 1965, his son Tim took on his family’s share of the ownership. However, Tim and Wellington often clashed over the team's direction, a battle that continued until Tim Mara sold his family’s 50% share of the franchise to the Tisch family just after Super Bowl XXV in 1991. 

Manning is no stranger to being a minority owner of a sports franchise. He currently has a small stake in the New Jersey/New York Gotham Football Club of the National Women’s Soccer League.

“I think my quest post-football is trying to find that passion and find something similar that I can work towards or am truly committed to,” Manning said. “I kind of feel like I get to start over a little bit, and I’m enjoying that learning process of figuring out what else I’m passionate about.”

Neither the Mara nor Tisch families are believed to be interested in selling any part of their share of ownership, as to do so would mean that one side of the ownership tandem would have a greater controlling interest in the Giants (unless both decided to sell an equal amount of shares to a minority owner).

In Mara’s case, his father, who died in 2005 after a battle with cancer, is believed to have left his share of the team to his 11 children, the oldest of whom is John, the team’s COO and president. 

Two of John’s brothers, Chris and Frank, are also actively involved in running the franchise. John’s nephew, Tim McDonnell, the son of his oldest sister Susan Mara McDonnell, is the Director of Player Personnel.

On the Tisch side of the franchise, Steve Tisch heads the family’s interest after inheriting 50% of it after his father, Preston Robert Tisch, passed away in 2005. Steve’s two siblings, Jonathan and Laurie, sit on the team’s board of directors. Jonathan is listed as the team’s treasurer, and Laurie is the board director.

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