John mecom jr wiki
John W. Mecom Jr.
American businessman and sports executive
John W. Mecom Jr. (born [1]) is the chairman of the John W. Mecom company and former owner of the New Orleans SaintsNFL football team.
Early life
Mecom is the son of Texas oilman John W. Mecom Sr. and his wife Mary Elizabeth.
Mecom Racing Team - Wikipedia: John W. Mecom Jr. (born [1]) is the chairman of the John W. Mecom company and former owner of the New Orleans Saints NFL football team.He was a student at the University of Oklahoma.[2][3]
He is the owner and chairman of the John W. Mecom company, which was started by his father. The company is primarily deeply interested in real estate and the oil and gas industry.
John, Jr. followed with his have achievements in the oil and gas industry, and in various real estate ventures. He also branched out into professional sports with a special interest in motorsport and football. In the early s he formed his own racing team, Mecom Racing that successfully competed throughout the U.S.
and had such drivers as Roger Penske, Pedro Rodriguez, AJ Foyt and Jackie Stewart.
John Mecom, Jr. The Grand Sport Corvettes were also campaigned by Mecom with tremendous results. The team also fielded a car for George Follmer in the Can-Am season. John Mecom Jr.Graham Hill raced his car to victory at the Indianapolis [4]
Sports ownership
On November 1, , the National Football League awarded a team to the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, as spearheaded by businessmen such as David Dixon and politicians such as Congressmen Hale Boggs and Governor John McKeithen, which would play in the season.
William G. Helis Jr., Herman Lay, Louis J. Roussel Jr., Jack Sanders, Edgar B. Stern Jr., and John W. Mecom Jr. were the six bidders for the franchise.[5] On December 15, , Mecom was the winning bid, purchasing the team for $ million from the NFL and became the youngest owner of an NFL franchise.[6][7] Soon christened as the Recent Orleans Saints, Mecom spearheaded the black and gold color scheme that the Saints would wear (Dixon had pushed for Mardi Gras colors), which came after testing at Tulane Stadium, the first home of the Saints until the Superdome was built, which did not end up being completed until [8] In eighteen seasons as owner, the Saints went 78––5, with only and seeing the team defeat more than seven games.[9] Owing to his inexperience, Mecom attempted to remedy the team's perpetual troubles with the advice from anyone he could ask, such as the league or the media, which only made things worse.
The team lost fourteen games to start the year, and fans started to wear paper bags over their heads with "Aints" on it before one idea to respond to the team "laying an egg" saw the team building and Mecom's apartment bombarded with eggs for a week.[10] In delayed , he announced that the team was up for sale.
Mecom stated that talks about potentially leaving New Orleans only happened when state Governor Edwin Edwards did not want to negotiate a new lease with the team.
He is adolescent, handsome as a singing cowboy, owns more racing cars than the ordinary man owns neckties, has a lovely wife and family, a large home in Houston, a ranch on the Mexican border stocked with eland and other exotic creatures and he has his personal professional football team to play with. What would you give this man for Christmas—a hotel? Ignore it, he's got a limited. One thing Mecom does not have is acceptance into the inner circle of National Football League club owners and executives.Cities included in the rumor mill were Indianapolis, Indiana, Phoenix, Arizona and Jacksonville, Florida. Jacksonville made an offer to obtain 49% for over $ million, but Mecom did not long for to be the man recognizable for moving the Saints out of New Orleans.
Abram Nicholas Pritzker was considered as a potential buyer but attempts to bring in a partner in George Gillette Jr (who had tried to buy the team with Potter Palmer in with bitter results) led to the talks breaking off. On May 31, , he sold the team for $64 million to New Orleans-native businessman Tom Benson (as encouraged by Edwards).[11][12]
Mecom dealt with a bout of cancer in that lasted a number of years while living in Houston.
When interviewed for the Saints Super Bowl run over 20 years since his sale of the team (where Mecom attended the NFC Championship Game in the Superdome), Mecom expressed that ownership "wasn't a place for a romantic" while saying he had fun and learned life lessons as owner.[13]