Michael Bidwill never knew his grandmother. But as the historian of his family’s generational ownership of the Cardinals franchise, and the current owner of the team, he knows a great deal about Violet Bidwill.
His father Bill, the late owner of the Cardinals, told Michael a story of when Violet was watching one of Bill’s football games.
“He was playing high school football and … he was a running back and was shoved out of bounds. And he slid and ended up sort of wrapped up in a fence with one leg inside of a wire fence. And he looked up and there’s his mother, leaning over the fence, screaming at him saying, ‘Get up and get back in there!'” Michael Bidwill said.
“So she was tough. And she was a football fan. But she wanted him to compete at a high level, and he certainly did. But he also talked about what a great mom she was and how loving she was towards him and how much he missed her.”
Violet Bidwill ran the Cardinals franchise with that same attitude, the first woman to own an NFL franchise and the first female owner in all of professional sports. She was the owner from 1947 until her death in 1962, spanning the franchises’ move from Chicago to St. Louis in 1960.
This year marks the 75th anniversary of when Violet Bidwill took over the Cardinals after her husband, Charles, passed away in April 1947.
“He passed at 52 years old, and she was suddenly running a number of the businesses that he was running and went from that to all of a sudden, she’s running them all and including the football team,” Michael Bidwill said. “I’ve thought about this quite a bit, I think she inspired my father because my father saw somebody who wasn’t really supposed to be in that position. At the time it was, as I say, exclusively male dominated, and he saw his mother do a job based on her own merit and not on her gender.
“And so, I think in many ways that helped shape him for some of the things he did with diversity and inclusion, back before those were terms that the corporate world has embraced,” Bidwill said.
Today, women are well represented in the ownership ranks of the NFL. Amy Adams Strunk owns 50 percent of the Tennessee Titans. Kim Pegula (Buffalo Bills) and Dee Haslam (Cleveland Browns) are principal owners of their respective teams. According to a Forbes.com article from last month, 18 of the league’s 32 franchises are at least partially female-owned, with 10 listing women as majority owners or co-owners.
That includes the Denver Broncos’ Mellody Hobson and Carrie Walton Penner.
With the Philadelphia Eagles coming to Arizona to play the Cardinals this Sunday, the team is also recognizing the 75th anniversary of the Cardinals defeating the Eagles in the 1947 NFL title game, 28-21 at Comiskey Park in Chicago.
It’s the most recent championship the Cardinals have won, and it was the first season of Violet Bidwill’s ownership. Violet Bidwill would go on to involve her college-age sons Charles Jr. and Bill running the Cardinals.
In the late 1950s, Violet Bidwill was in the room with the other owners for one of the most impactful moves league owners have ever made.
“She was part of those discussions with the first CBS television contracts in the National Football League,” Michael Bidwill said. “The TV contract was split evenly among all the teams.”
Violet Bidwill enjoyed her tenure as Cardinals owner, even if the only success the franchise tasted during those years was her first season running the team.
She also had an eye for talent. According to a Sports Illustrated article dated April 4, 1960, when Charles Bidwill Sr. died in 1947, his stock in the Chicago Bears went to his widow, Violet, who shortly after sold it back to Bears owner George Halas. Later, Violet Bidwill told Halas that she would let him keep $50,000 he owed her, in return for third-string quarterback Bobby Layne.
Halas refused the deal and traded away young Layne, who ended up having a career that landed him in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
“She knew Charlie loved it. She knew her boys loved football and she wanted to keep them a part of it. And this wasn’t just male dominated, it was an exclusively male industry at the time. And so she was the only woman in the room at league meetings for many years, and a decision maker,” said Michael Bidwill. “And as I understood it, she really held her own. She was very shrewd, and understood business very well and obviously sat and talked to my grandfather a lot about business.”
Get in touch with Jose Romero at [email protected]. Find him on Twitter at @RomeroJoseM.