Meet Jeffrey Lurie, the Billionaire Owner of the Philadelphia Eagles
"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links."
As the Philadelphia Eagles face the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LIX today, fans may be wondering about the team owners. The Chiefs are owned by the Hunt family, who have owned the team since it was founded in 1959, while the Eagles are owned by Jeffrey Lurie, who purchased the team in 1994.
Here’s everything you need to know about the 73-year-old Eagles team owner:
Lurie was born and raised in Boston.
The son of Nancy and Morris Lurie, he grew up in a Jewish family in West Newton, a Boston suburb, with his two siblings, Peter and Cathy.
His father passed away when he was just nine years old. “I kind of became an adult at age nine, but you’re kind of always a kid. You shouldn’t try to lose it,” he said.
“He was very close to his father, and sports was their primary connection,” Robert Huber wrote in a profile of Lurie in Philadelphia Magazine in 2017. “And then sports got even bigger, in the wake of his father’s death. Lurie played tennis and baseball, but playing wasn’t really the point; watching — becoming an obsessive fan of Boston’s teams — was. His mother, Nancy, let him skip school on the day of the NFL draft when he was a teenager, as if it was a national holiday. Sports was a way to keep his father alive and a path, too, into a parallel world, a method of survival after what he had lost. An escape.”
Growing up, Lurie went to Buckingham Browne & Nichols School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, before receiving his bachelor of arts from Clark University. He went onto graduate school, getting a masters in psychology from Boston University and a doctorate in social policy from Brandeis University. (His thesis was about the depiction of women in Hollywood.)
He founded Chestnut Hill Productions in 1985.
His maternal grandfather, Philip Smith, founded the General Cinema movie theater chain. He joined the company in 1983, which was then run by his uncle, Richard A. Smith.
Two years later, he started a production company, Chestnut Hill Productions, which was a joint venture with Tri-Star Pictures. (Tri-Star got a first look at all their projects.) Feature films he’s produced include Sweet Hearts Dance, I Love You to Death, and V.I. Warshawski. (See the full list on his IMDB page).
He was an executive producer on the documentary film Inside Job, which won an Academy Award for Best Documentary Film in 2010, and Inocente, which won for Best Documentary Short in 2013.
Lurie purchased the Eagles in 1994.
In 1993, he tried to buy his hometown team, the New England Patriots, but dropped his bid. In 1994, he successfully bought the Eagles from Norman Braman for $195 million.
Per his official Eagles bio, “Lurie's blueprint for success has had a profound impact on the field, leading to a greater overall winning percentage (.556, 286-228-3), more playoff games (34), and more playoff victories (17) than all previous ownership groups combined. That model, however, is not just limited to football, as the Philadelphia Eagles organization has wholly embraced a championship mentality in all aspects of its operations, especially in the community.”
He has two children.
In 1993, he married Christina Weiss. They share daughter Milena (b. 1993) and son Julian (b. 1995), and in 2012, they divorced. She remains a minority owner of the Eagles.
“We share the same goals for the Eagles that we have always had,” the Luries said in a letter to team employees, emphasizing their divorce would not impact the operations of the team. “We want a world championship team, of course, and we want to carry on the dedicated community service that is so much a part of this company's heart and soul. We will strive to improve even further and make the Eagles a sports organization of which we are all very proud.”
Lurie met his now-wife Tina Lai when she was working at a deli.
In 2013, Lurie remarried, tying the knot with Tina Lai. They reportedly met when she was working at her brother's Fu Wah Deli. Her brother Benny Lai also owned Vietnam, a James Beard-winning restaurant in Philadelphia's chinatown; Vietnam Café in West Philly; and Grill Fish.
“The Lai family was among the first wave of Vietnamese refugees who came to Philadelphia to build a life on hard work and entrepreneurship fueled by lemongrass-scented feasts,” the James Beard judges noted about Vietnam Restaurant, per Eater Philadelphia. “The founding couple, Nhu Lai and Thuyen Luu, fled Vietnam by boat with their eight children after being stripped of their sandal factory in 1978. After nearly a year in a Malaysian refugee camp, they arrived in Philadelphia in 1979, began with a grocery, then quickly transitioned to a modest restaurant space in Chinatown in 1984. “By 2000, after handing the business over to their son, Benny, moving to a larger multi-floor space next door, and undergoing a decor makeover evoking French colonial accents, the family secured Vietnam’s place as one of Philly’s favorite date-night destinations for classic Vietnamese cuisine.”
Lurie’s net worth is estimated to be around $5.3 billion.
Forbes ranks him the 625th wealthiest person in the world, and one of the 400 wealthiest people in America.
You Might Also Like
