Giants’ Steve Tisch Requesting To Transfer Ownership Stake
Giants co-owner Steve Tisch was named in the Epstein files recently. No NFL investigation has commenced, but the longtime Giants leader is preparing to step out of his role.
Team co-owners Steve, Laurie and Jonathan Tisch have sent a request to the NFL’s finance committee to transfer their ownership stakes into their children’s trusts, according to ESPN.com’s Seth Wickersham and Jordan Raanan and The Athletic’s Dianna Russini. Steve Tisch and his two siblings have co-owned the Giants since 2005.
Tisch’s name is mentioned at least 440 times in the files connected to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Those ranged from casual to problematic. As a result, Tisch is taking a Giants exit ramp after 21 years alongside John Mara atop the organization.
If/when the NFL finance committee approves the transfer, the family’s memo states Tisch would “no longer own any interest in the Giants.” This will mark the third and final transfer of the Tischs’ trusts, with Raanan indicating previous transfers to his children’s trusts occurred in 2023 and 2024.
“We had a brief association where we exchanged emails about adult women, and in addition, we discussed movies, philanthropy, and investments,” Tisch said earlier this year, discussing his relationship with Epstein. “I did not take him up on any of his invitations and never went to his island. As we all know now, he was a terrible person and someone I deeply regret associating with.”
The emails show Epstein connecting Tisch, 77, to a number of women. Most of the duo’s correspondence appears to have taken place in 2013. Epstein had already served prison time for sex crimes by that point, beginning that sentence in 2008. Several execs and an owner informed Wickersham and Raanan they expected a Tisch update at this month’s owners meetings. While the controversial emails are undoubtedly at the root of Tisch’s Giants exit strategy, he has not been accused of any crimes. Authorities arrested Epstein on federal sex trafficking charges in 2019. He was found dead in a jail cell in August 2019.
The Mara family founded the Giants in 1925; John Mara serves as the team’s president at CEO. Working in the team facility and speaking on the team’s behalf, Mara has the far more active Giants owner during his partnership with Tisch. Described previously as a silent partner, the latter is part of the Giants’ decision-making structure. Though Tisch has not spoken publicly about the Giants since 2020, he did sit in on coaching interviews during the franchise’s effort to lure John Harbaugh earlier this year. Tisch was believed to be the strongest Harbaugh proponent within the organization.
Among a number of high-profile figures mentioned in the Epstein files, Tisch is a partner at Escape Artists, a film production company, and has produced several movies — including Forrest Gump and Risky Business. The New Jersey native has sat as the Giants’ chairman of the board; his brother, Jonathan, is the team’s treasurer. One of Jonathan’s sons, Charles, works in the Giants’ football ops department as an administration manager.
The Maras and Tisches each own a 45% stake in the Giants, according to NJ.com’s Darryl Slater. The other 10% was sold, as the NFL began to allow private equity investments in teams, in 2025. The Tisches’ stake is valued at $2.31 billion, Slater adds.
NFC Front Office Notes: Eagles, Rosenberg, Falcons, Giants, Panthers, Bears
Jake Rosenberg‘s Eagles exit is now official. After a report earlier this offseason indicated Rosenberg would step down following a 12-year tenure with the team, the Eagles’ VP of football administration made the announcement (via PHLY.com’s Zach Berman). A friend of GM Howie Roseman‘s dating back to elementary school, Rosenberg assisted the Eagles on the salary cap front. The team has frequently been ahead of the curve in this area, as its 2024 offseason reinforced. It is not known where Rosenberg is headed, but this marks another key departure in the Eagles’ front office. Two years ago, four of Roseman’s lieutenants — Brandon Brown, Ian Cunningham, Catherine Raiche, Andy Weidl — left for assistant GM roles elsewhere. Another key piece will need to be replaced now.
Post-draft front office changes are common around the league. Here is the latest from the NFC:
- Despite not being a Terry Fontenot hire, Tokunbo Abanikanda will rise to a key post in the Falcons‘ front office. The team is promoting the veteran scout to its college scouting director post, InsidetheLeague.com’s Neil Stratton tweets. Abanikanda has been with the Falcons since midway through Thomas Dimitroff‘s GM tenure, arriving in 2012. He will now take a pivotal role in the team’s draft preparation. Elsewhere in the Falcons’ front office, the team’s player personnel coordinator — Brian Zeches — is moving on, Stratton adds. Formerly an exec in Washington and Kansas City, Zeches was named to this post during the 2023 offseason.
- In addition to adding Chris Snee to their scouting staff, the Giants are making multiple in-house promotions. They are bumping Nick La Testa to assistant director of pro scouting and naming Charles Tisch their football operations manager, The Athletic’s Dan Duggan tweets. Charles Tisch, who had been a football ops assistant, is the nephew of Giants co-owner Steve Tisch. With the Giants since 2017, La Testa had previously worked on the scouting level for the team.
- A Carolina-to-Washington pipeline formed during Ron Rivera‘s NFC East stay, but the Commanders will now lose an exec to the Panthers. Carolina is hiring David Whittington for a college scouting role, according to Stratton. Whittington had been with Washington since 2009, holding several positions. Most recently, he worked as a national scout with the Commanders. The Panthers are also adding Eric Eager to their analytics department, per Stratton. Eager, a former Pro Football Focus staffer, worked most recently as the vice president of SumerSports, an analytics-based website that also employs Dimitroff presently.
- The Bears are going through with a round of promotions as well. GM Ryan Poles is elevating Breck Ackley from assistant college scouting director to the director post, while Stratton notes national scout Francis St. Paul will become the assistant director. Area scouts Brendan Rehor and John Syty are also moving to national scouting roles.
Giants Reshuffle Front Office
Six months into the Dave Gettleman regime, the Giants reorganized their front office on Wednesday. The headline move involved longtime Giants exec Kevin Abrams moving from the assistant GM title to the VP of football operations. But Big Blue made many other moves as well.
Former Panthers exec Mark Koncz joined his former boss as a consultant this offseason, but Gettleman established the longtime Carolina staffer as the Giants’ new director of player personnel, the team announced. Additionally, Chris Pettit is now the Giants’ director of college scouting, moving to that role after spending 13 years as an area scout.
Koncz worked for the Panthers from 1994, a year before their first season, until he was fired one week after Gettleman’s ouster last summer. Koncz served as Carolina’s director of player personnel during Gettleman’s tenure and spent nearly 15 years as the franchise’s director of pro scouting. Pettit’s worked in a full-time role with the franchise since 2005 but began his run with the Giants as an intern in 1998.
Former Giants linebacker Jessie Armstead will serve as special assistant to Gettleman, Patrick Hanscomb will shift from a role in the pro personnel department to a job as an area scout, specializing in the Mid-Atlantic region, and the Giants hired Marcus Cooper over from the Bills. He’ll serve as an area scout as well, working in the southeast. Cooper worked with the Bills for seven years, most recently serving as Buffalo’s Combine scout.
Ed Triggs will work as the Giants’ football operations coordinator, with Ty Siam assigned to football ops/data analytics. Charles Tisch will be a football operations assistant.
With Gettleman being diagnosed with lymphoma, Paul Schwartz of the New York Post anticipates Abrams’ role increasing and sees the team’s cap expert and chief negotiator looming as a logical successor to the current GM at some point.