Famous American Sports Administrators

Vincent Kennedy McMahon is a professional wrestling promoter, currently serving as WWE's chairman and CEO. Often regarded as the most influential person in the history of professional wrestling, McMahon is credited with popularizing WWE. Also a well-known philanthropist, McMahon donated more than $8 million in 2008, giving grants to the Sacred Heart University, Fishburne Military School, and East Carolina University.

A former professional baseball player, Billy Beane went on to become a front office executive, a position which he has used to apply statistical analysis called sabermetrics to baseball. This has proved to be a game-changer as teams are now evaluating players based on this statistical analysis. His career inspired the film Moneyball where he was played by Brad Pitt.

Jerry Krause was a sports scout and executive. He served as the general manager of the Chicago Bulls in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for several years, from 1985 to 2003. He won the NBA Executive of the Year Award twice. He died in 2017 and was posthumously inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame later that year. 

Initially MLB’s chief baseball officer, Joe Torre has won 4 World Series championships for the New York Yankees, as a manager. He has authored books such as The Yankee Years. He and his wife have launched the Joe Torre Safe At Home Foundation, which helps prevent domestic violence.

Though born into the well-known political family, Roger Goodell, the son of senator Charles Goodell, avoided politics and stepped into sports instead. The current NFL commissioner, he was instrumental in bringing about significant changes to decrease on-field concussions of players, by introducing punishments for hitting defenseless players.

Known to his fans as The Mouth of the South, Jimmy Hart is a popular wrestling manage who works for WWE. As a teenager, he had joined the 60s’ band The Gentrys, which released the Billboard-charting track Keep on Dancing. He has also been the man behind many wrestlers’ entrance themes.

Also known as The Chief, Art Rooney not only founded the NFL team Pittsburgh Steelers but was also named to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He won the Super Bowl four times as an owner and was a major force behind the NFL-AFL merger. He was also a track racing enthusiast.

Miami University head football coach Bo Schembechler was once part of the Ohio State-Michigan rivalry, known as the Ten-Year War. He was also dragged into a controversy when it was reported that in spite of several Michigan students claiming they were sexually abused by a university doctor, he downplayed the incidents.

Joe Dumars is an American former basketball player who played in the National Basketball Association, representing the Detroit Pistons. He helped his NBA team win two championship titles in 1989 and 1990. He also represented the United States basketball team in the 1994 FIBA World Championship where he helped his team win the gold medal.

Apart from owning NFL's Houston Texans, Bob McNair also gained fame as a self-made billionaire, who made it to the Forbes 400 in 2018. After a streak of failures in business, he finally managed to succeed with Cogen Technologies. He also headed the real-estate firm The McNair Group.

The son of a professor, A. Bartlett Giamatti grew up to follow in his father’s footsteps and be a professor of English and the president of Yale. However, his love for baseball also made him an MLB Commissioner. As the president of the National League, he removed Pete Rose for shoving an umpire.

The son of a Union soldier, Kenesaw Mountain Landis was successful US federal judge. He was also the first Commissioner of Baseball and is remembered for his role in the Black Sox scandal, in which he removed eight Chicago White Sox players for deliberately losing the 1919 World Series.

Wellington Mara co-owned the NFL team New York Giants, as he inherited the team from his father and the team’s founder, Tim Mara. The Giants players named him The Duke, as it was believed he was named after the Duke of Wellington. He died of lymphoma at age 89.

The current MLB Commissioner Emeritus of Baseball, Bud Selig had initially served the army and also worked as a car dealer. Named to the Baseball Hall of Fame, he has also been criticized for his failure to curb the use of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball. He previously also owned the Milwaukee Brewers.