Giants’ Steve Tisch aims to offload remaining ownership shares amid Epstein scrutiny

NEW YORK — Giants co-owner Steve Tisch, together with treasurer Jonathan Tisch and board director Laurie Tisch, has formally asked the NFL’s finance committee to approve the transfer of their combined 23.1 percent stake in the franchise to trusts benefiting their children, according to a league memo obtained by the New York Daily News.

If approved, the maneuver would end the Tisch siblings’ direct ownership of the club. “Following the transactions, the sellers will no longer own any interest in the club,” the memo states.

The timing is freighted with controversy. Steve Tisch, 77, has been under fire since Jan. 30, when Justice Department documents revealed a series of emails between the film producer and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The correspondence, dating to April 2013, shows Tisch seeking information about women in Epstein’s orbit and Epstein offering to facilitate introductions. In one exchange, Epstein urged Tisch to communicate via cellphone because he dislikes “records of these conversations.”

Tisch issued a brief statement on Jan. 30 asserting that the relationship was limited to “adult women” and that he never accepted invitations to Epstein’s island. Subsequent reporting by The Athletic and The Wall Street Journal detailed additional messages suggesting Epstein arranged meetings between Tisch and young women.

Neither the Giants nor the NFL have opened a formal investigation, and commissioner Roger Goodell deflected questions on the topic at the Super Bowl. A Giants spokesperson reiterated Wednesday that Tisch’s role remains “status quo.” Yet the proposed intra-family transfer, floated just days after owners concluded committee meetings in Palm Beach, could insulate the patriarch from the league’s personal-conduct policy, which empowers Goodell to punish conduct “detrimental to the integrity of and public confidence in” the NFL.

The memo notes that earlier phases of the Tisch restructure won finance-committee approval in 2023 and 2024, signaling the current request is the final step of a multiyear estate plan rather than a spur-of-the-moment exit. Still, the optics are stark: multiple owners, including Jerry Richardson and Daniel Snyder, have been compelled to sell teams after workplace scandals. By shifting shares to heirs rather than outside buyers, the Tisch family would retain effective control while distancing the franchise from Steve Tisch’s entanglement with Epstein.

The NFL’s owners are scheduled to reconvene March 28-31 in Phoenix, where the finance committee is expected to vote on the transfer. Approval would formalize the end of the Tisch trio’s half-century run at the top of the Giants’ organizational chart and, the family hopes, blunt further public-relations fallout.