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There was some sad news last week.
Betty Wold Johnson, the mother of Jets co-owners Christopher and Woody Johnson, passed away at the age of 99.
Will this unfortunate news impact the Jets?
Most people assume that it won’t impact them at all.
This probably isn’t an accurate assessment.
Why?
Because the Jets until her passing, the Jets were owned by Christopher Johnson, Woody Johnson and Betty Wold Johnson.
USA Today headline after Betty’s passing: “Betty Wold Johnson, mother of Jets owners, dies at 99.”
There were a lot of headlines like this.
Yes, Betty was the mother was Christopher and Woody, who are Jets owners, but he was one of the Jets’ owners up until her passing.
This was not publicized, but it was the reality.
Now, she was a very private person, and stayed out of Jets business, but she had a piece of the team.
The same with Christopher, who stayed in the background up to the point that Woody was named Ambassador to Great Britain, and then Christopher took over at the team’s active owner.
As far as Betty’s financial interest in the team, think about it this way:
When Betty’s husband, Robert Wood Johnson, the father of Christopher and Woody passed away in 1970, who do you think inherited most of his money?
When a couple is married, and the wealthy husband passes, who gets the lion’s share of the money? In most cases, the wife, of course.
Not to say Woody and Christopher weren’t taken care of. Of course they were, but it was Betty who received a large chunk of the inheritance. That is common sense.
So when the Johnson family bought the Jets in 2000, while Woody was made the front man, and Christopher and Betty stayed in the background, a league source has told me repeatedly, they all owned the team together.
So now that she’s gone, that might impact the owner situation moving forward. It might not. We shall see.
Another thing to keep in mind. A lot of pro sports owners have taken a financial beating during the stock market crash caused by the Coronavirus Pandemic.
Many, right now, are not worth nearly as much as they were before pandemic became a big problem, two months ago.
I was told that one NBA owner took such a financial beating, he’s likely going to have to sell his team very soon.
Somebody who has been in the business side of sports a long time, and deals with a lot of professionals teams as a consultant, said he expects a number of pro teams to be on the market in the next 12-18 months.
I’m not saying that the Johnson’s are having financial issues. I would have no way of knowing that. They could be just fine.
But with the unfortunate passing of Betty, and the turmoil in the financial world, it’s unclear what is going to happen with the Jets in the future.
Because as I have pointed out during this story: Betty wasn’t just the mother of the Jets’ owners, she was an owner herself.
May 15, 2020
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