ExtremeRavens Posted 20 hours ago Posted 20 hours ago Steve Bisciotti smiled when the question came up. In 15 years, the Ravens owner will be 80 — and he doesn’t expect to still be in charge of the franchise. Speaking publicly for the first time in four years, Bisciotti used this week’s news conference to open up about his future while also addressing Baltimore’s coaching search after the firing of John Harbaugh. “I want to win a couple Super Bowls and get the hell out,” Bisciotti said. “I’d love that to be within the next 10 years from when I’m 75. That’s my dream.” Bisciotti, 65, first purchased a 49% stake in the franchise in March 2000 before acquiring a majority share in April 2004. The Ravens have won two Super Bowls during his tenure — one in 2001 when he was a minority owner and another in 2013 as the controlling owner. He remains deeply competitive and engaged with the organization, a reality proven by his decision last week to fire Harbaugh. But Bisciotti said he doesn’t envision maintaining that same intensity well into his 80s, even taking a lighthearted jab at Cowboys owner Jerry Jones. “When I see Jerry talking about what part of his anatomy he’d give up for a Super Bowl at 83 years old, I don’t want to be there,” Bisciotti said. If the Ravens remain one of the NFL’s top teams when he turns 75, he said he may stay a year or two longer. But his message was clear. “I’ll probably bail somewhere around 10 years from now,” Bisciotti said. Bisciotti said the Ravens will be sold to a new ownership group rather than passed down within his family. He has seen firsthand how inherited ownership can fracture families and destabilize franchises. Some of the league’s most famous family-run organizations — including the Bears, Lions and Raiders — have spent decades mired in dysfunction after control passed from their founders to their heirs. There’s often internal disputes, unclear leadership structures and football decisions driven by family politics rather than expertise. Those power struggles have coincided with prolonged losing, front-office instability and, in some cases, the erosion of once-proud brands. It’s exactly the outcome Bisciotti wants to avoid. “I don’t think its healthy for my family,” he said. “I’ve seen families feud and ruined over these damn teams, and I was determined not to do it.” When Bisciotti first became involved with the Ravens, he noted that Patriots owner Robert “Bob” Kraft and Jones were younger than he is now. Today, Kraft and Jones, along with Falcons owner Arthur Blank, 83, and Dolphins owner Stephen Ross, 85, are still running their teams at ages far beyond what Bisciotti envisions for himself, he said. The Ravens’ owner has also taken a step back in recent years. He framed it Tuesday as a choice rooted more in family than football. Bisciotti described a moment of self-awareness in the early 2010s when he realized he wasn’t being fully truthful with his wife about what buying an NFL team would mean. He had promised it would be more “hobby” than “business.” The deeper he got into league committees and the grind of ownership, the more he felt himself slipping into the 70-hour-week version of the job. Family started coming second. “I dreamed of a gold jacket like the Maras and the Rooneys and that kind of dissipated,” Bisciotti said. “In order to earn a gold jacket as an owner, you better be putting in 70-hour weeks … I wasn’t willing to do that.” That retreat has been visible publicly, too. The owner who once made annual “State of the Ravens” appearances largely stopped doing them, and he acknowledged why: he didn’t see the benefit of routinely dissecting playoff exits from the podium when the people making the football decisions were better positioned to explain them. Bisciotti doesn’t come around often anymore. But the owner who once held court every winter was back this week because, in his mind, this wasn’t just another season’s end. It was a franchise pivot. “My instincts told me this was the time,” Bisciotti said. Have a news tip? Contact Michael Howes at mhowes@baltsun.com, 410-332-6200, or x.com/Mikephowes. View the full article Quote
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