ENTER TISCH

Bob Tisch had known Art Modell for many years. Their businesses and philanthropic ventures had helped forge a friendship. Modell was the owner of the Cleveland Browns (this was before pulling up stakes and moving the franchise to Baltimore to become the Ravens) but did a lot of business in New York City. He was even a Giants season ticket holder, often taking associates to those games. Tisch was the owner of the Loews hotel and theater chain and served as the postmaster general. He and his wife, Joan, were very involved in a number of causes in the New York area. And yes, he too was a Giants season ticket holder.

The two men had many conversations over the years about a variety of topics, but one subject that often came up was football.

They’d talk about the NFL, about the Giants—the team that both men grew up rooting for—and about the sport in general. They’d discuss the history of the game and its future. They’d talk as fans.

Then, one day, Modell called Tisch with a question.

“Would you like to buy a football team?”

Tisch’s first response was to ask if Modell was selling the Browns.

“No,” Modell said. “But let’s have lunch.”

It was at that meeting that Modell set forth the framework for what would eventually—and relatively quickly—become Tisch’s 50 percent ownership stake in the New York Giants.

There were essentially two conditions that were set forth at that meal. The first was a nonnegotiable price for the half of the franchise that was being sold by Tim Mara, around $75 million. Tisch didn’t blink. The second was that there would have to be a successful agreement with Wellington Mara, who was maintaining his 50 percent share of the organization, regarding the roles each would play in terms of running the team. With a 50–50 split, there’d have to be rules about things like who had the power to hire and fire coaches, who would vote at league meetings, and other such matters.

“As I remember, my father’s response was: I have no concerns that I will quickly be able to work out the management and coownership agreement with him,” said his son, Steve Tisch, now the chairman and executive vice-president—coowner, for short—of the Giants.

Those negotiations did move swiftly.

John Mara, Wellington’s son and now president and CEO of the Giants, played a very large role in the agreement between the two men thanks to his knowledge of the football business as well as his schooling as an attorney.

On the day before the Giants played the Bills in Super Bowl XXV, John Mara went to Bob Tisch’s hotel suite in Tampa. He had come to town as a fan for the big game. He left as something much more than that.

“We ironed out the last couple of details and shook hands, and that was pretty much it,” Mara said. “It was always a very friendly negotiation. Not all of them are, but this one was.”

The agreement was in place. Pending approval from the league that spring, Bob Tisch owned half of the team that was playing in and would win the Super Bowl in the next 24 hours.

Not a bad way to start out in the business.

Tisch purchased half of the franchise from Tim Mara, the grandson of the team’s founder. He had inherited his share from his father, Jack, who was the brother of Wellington Mara. Jack passed away in 1965.

Wellington and Tim had a dysfunctional relationship as coowners of the Giants.

“The public feud that my father and cousin had was a particularly painful period,” John Mara said. “It was tabloid back pages—and sometimes front pages—for quite a long period of time. They were holding dueling press conferences. It was an ugly, ugly scene.”

Tim Mara considered selling his half of the team at several points, including in 1984 and 1986. “I just felt like at this point in my life the time was right,” Tim Mara said at the time of the sale.

As for Tisch, he certainly had the financial wherewithal to purchase an entire team had such an opportunity come about. And there were a few times before the Giants deal came together that he did put out feelers—or receive them—regarding a team that was on the market.

“My father, as he became more successful, really had a dream that he someday could possibly own a professional sports team in a city that he loved,” Steve Tisch said. “When he received the phone call about the Giants, for my father, it was truly a dream come true… I believe that for my father, 50 percent of the New York Giants was much more important to him than 100 percent of any of the other NFL teams. He was Mr. New York. When the opportunity to buy 50 percent of the New York Giants was offered, there was no way he was going to say, ‘Let me think about it,’ or ‘I’d rather own 100 percent of another NFL team.’ For him it was an answered prayer. He was very, very excited.”

Preston Robert Tisch, whom everyone called Bob, bought half of the Giants in 1991. His family still controls 50 percent of the franchise. (Jerry Pinkus)

The Giants became—and remain—the only professional sports team with a true 50–50 split in ownership. That has led to some interesting situations over the years.

For instance, one of the first things Tisch noticed in going over the team’s books was the expense of providing lunch for all of the organization’s employees.

“That goes back to my grandfather’s day when there were eight employees in Manhattan,” John Mara said. “I remember him looking at some of our expense reports and he asked about it and I told him about it and he looked at me with horror. He said, ‘Nobody does that! Why do you do that?’”

Mara explained not only the convention, but the practicality of it. With the offices in the Meadowlands, there were not a lot of nearby options for picking up a quick midday bite. Mara told Tisch it was a practice he and his family would like to continue.

“He went along with it,” Mara said. “He saw that there were certain traditions that we had, and he didn’t want to interfere with those. That’s something I’ll always appreciate about him.”

There were other areas where Tisch’s business acumen was heeded.

“He knew what he didn’t know, so he didn’t come in and start giving advice about who to play or things like that,” Mara said. “But he was very opinionated about some of our business practices, and he helped us a great deal. I like to say he professionalized us in terms of some of our business practices back then, made us more of a properly run business. We’ve always been kind of a mom-and-pop operation, and to a certain extent we still are, but there were practices he helped us implement, financial practices, that have served us very well.”

Preston Robert Tisch, whom everyone called Bob, was born to Sadye and Al Tisch in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, on April 29, 1926. He went to the University of Michigan—where he met his wife, Joan—and in 1946 with his brother Laurence opened a hotel. That partnership eventually grew into ownership of Loews Inc. in 1959 and the creating of Loews Theaters and Loews Hotels in 1970.

His position with the company took him around the world, but he always remained a New Yorker at heart. And a Giants fan. He and his family spent time living in Miami and Atlantic City before returning to Manhattan in 1959. One of their first purchases upon rerooting in the Big Apple was season tickets for the Giants at Yankee Stadium.

Bob Tisch ran his businesses with an employee-first attitude. At one point, he personally hired all of the bellhops in his hotels, seeing them as his best salesmen because they were in immediate contact with the customers. He never took himself or his success so seriously that he made himself inaccessible. It was often said that Bob Tisch was as comfortable talking to the guest in the penthouse at the Regency as he was with the housekeepers, the bellmen, and the doormen.

And when it came to the Giants, that was accurate, as well.

When Tisch died, a memorial service was held at Avery Fisher Hall. Bob’s son Jonathan, now the treasurer for the Giants, asked running back Tiki Barber to say a few words at the event.

Barber was nervous, not by the size of the audience, but by the stature of it.

“It was New York politicians, media executives, billionaires, really a who’s who,” Barber said. “And I’m speaking. I didn’t write anything. I remember having a conversation with Jon asking him, ‘What do I say?’ He said: ‘Just tell us how you feel about Bob.’ So I didn’t write anything, I just went up there and started talking.”

The ceremony was solemn. There were very few reactions to what people were saying as they shared profound and deeply meaningful stories about their relationships with Bob Tisch. Barber took the stage in that somber setting and began talking about all the things he knew about Tisch, his role as postmaster, his various businesses. Basically the Wikipedia version of the man’s life.

“And then I said: ‘But to me, Bob’s greatest accomplishment was that he made a young black guy from rural Virginia feel like he was Jewish in New York City,’” Barber said. “And everybody started cracking up. But that’s how I felt about him.”

That’s the way Bob Tisch wanted everyone to feel about him.

They say when you marry a person, you don’t only marry them, but you marry their whole family. The same is true of buying or selling half an NFL team. While Wellington Mara and Bob Tisch knew each other casually and had many mutual friends including Art Modell, Paul Tagliabue, and even Frank Gifford, their sons were complete strangers.

In 2005, they became partners.

Wellington Mara died on October 25 of that year. John Mara took over control of the Mara half of the organization, which was no surprise. As Wellington’s oldest son and a longtime officer in the organization, he had been groomed for the position over the course of his lifetime. But when Bob Tisch died on November 15, it was unclear who would take over for him in the Giants’ hierarchy. At least not publicly.

Steve Tisch was a successful movie producer in Los Angeles and seemed the least likely of Tisch’s three children to be in line for the job. But in early August of 2004, when Bob Tisch was diagnosed with brain cancer, Steve Tisch moved from California back to New York to be with him.

“I remember walking into his room at NYU Hospital probably 36 hours after his diagnosis because I wanted to be with my father, with my family, with my siblings,” Steve Tisch said. “And I made a promise to my father and my mother, to my siblings, to my kids who were a lot younger then, and to myself, that I was going to be with my father and with my family in New York.”

Bob Tisch lived another 16 months and remained heavily involved in the business of the Giants. He wanted to be at his office and part of meetings with the Maras, the front office, the coaches. And he asked his son Steve to join him.

“In many ways, I felt like I was a teenager going to work with his dad, but that’s exactly what it was like,” Steve Tisch said.

The two spent time together in the office at Giants Stadium, Steve watching how his father navigated his role and absorbing lessons on a daily basis. It was a crash course on NFL ownership. And at one point during that 16-month period, the question all of it had been leading toward was asked.

“When I am no longer able to represent my ownership and our family’s ownership of the New York Giants,” Bob Tisch said to Steve, “will you do that for me and for your family?”

“I mean, it was a very emotional request, a very heartwarming and heartbreaking request,” Steve Tisch recalled of the moment. “And of course I said I would be honored to. And I did.”

When Bob Tisch died, John Mara and Steve Tisch, two very different personalities brought up in very different ways and in very different family-run businesses, were thrust into a partnership.

“The foundation of my relationship with John is totally built on trust,” Steve Tisch said. “John is the president of the New York Giants, John clearly has the Giants and the NFL in his DNA, and I’ve learned quite a bit observing John, being John’s partner.”

And what does Tisch bring?

“I think my experience of 45-plus years spent in the entertainment business, John appreciates and realizes that that brings a lot to an NFL team in modern times,” he said. “There is very little difference between the seats in a movie theater and the seats in a football stadium. The product is either on the screen or on the field, and whether it’s the players who play for the New York Giants or the movie an audience is watching, if it works and engages the fans, you’re going to have success.”

The Giants have. John Mara and Steve Tisch have won two Super Bowls together, two more than their fathers did during their 14-year partnership.

“Whenever you enter into a relationship like this, it’s always a bit of a gamble,” John Mara said. “You never know for sure. Fortunately, it’s worked out. It’s exceeded my expectations.”

Other than the 1990 Giants team that won Super Bowl XXV, which came just a day after the two families had a handshake agreement on their partnership, Wellington Mara and Bob Tisch did officially coown one team that made it to the Super Bowl. The 2000 Giants played in the big game… and faced a Ravens team that was owned by their old friend Art Modell.

“This [Super Bowl] is great for everybody,” Bob Tisch said during that week before the game in Tampa, the same city where he had initially finalized the deal a decade earlier. “It’s great for the Modell family, the Mara family, and the Tisch family.”

Tisch said when he bought his share of the Giants he told Wellington Mara that he wanted “10 years of pleasure” from the experience. Wellington Mara’s response to him was that it would take 30 years to get 10 years of pleasure.

“I’m kidding him now that we did it in nine years after I came to the team,” Tisch joked at that Super Bowl.

He never got to raise a Lombardi Trophy himself. He’s the only owner or coowner of the Giants who has never (officially) won a championship.

But he may have extruded more pleasure from his role—certainly more than 10 years’ worth—than anyone who has ever held that position with the franchise.