Tom Benson Marches In With Saints Purchase

"Path Cleared for Saints Sale"

That was the headline in Shreveport, Louisiana’s The Town Talk on June 1, 1985, and it is our Newspapers.com Football History Headline of the Day.

It is reporting on the May 31, 1985, New Orleans Saints sale to Tom Benson from John Mecom Jr. for $70,204,000. The final hurdles to the sale were the New Orleans City Council and School Boards each approving to surrender their share of sales taxes to keep the Saints in New Orleans as part of the deal. This was no small sacrifice either as the nearly $2.8 in revenue surrendered by the two groups went back to the Saints but the caveat was that Benson signed a 21 year lease with the Superdome. Benson stepped forward in March of 1984 to help the day when negotiations with the A.N. Pritzker family from Chicago fell apart in February. Mr. Benson owned the team until his passing in March of 2018 and had kept the franchise in the Superdome in New Orleans long beyond his initial 21-year obligation.

He had employed coaches such as Jim Mora, Mike Ditka, and Sean Payton and has even clutched a Lombardi Trophy after winning Super Bowl XLIV over the Indianapolis Colts, just a couple of years after Hurricane Katrina had devastated the New Orleans surrounding area.