Sports World Opens Wallets for Feely, Tafoya, Teixeira Campaigns

This is part of a Front Office Sports series about sports spending in the 2026 midterm elections.

As the nation heads to the polls to decide control of Congress two years into U.S. President Donald Trump’s second term, three sports figures captured Republican nominations—two for House races, and one for Senate.

Former NFL kicker and broadcaster Jay Feely is running in Arizona’s 1st Congressional District, former Rangers and Yankees first baseman Mark Teixeira is running in Texas’s 21st Congressional District, and former NBC and ESPN sideline reporter Michele Tafoya is running for Senate in Minnesota. 

Their former colleagues in the sports world are pouring money into their races. 

More than a dozen active team owners donated to one of the three, and other high-profile names including NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, 10-time NBA All-Star John Stockton, and CBS broadcasters Jim Nantz and Kevin Harlan also pitched in. 

Teixeira is expected to win, while Feely and Tafoya face uphill but surmountable general election battles. All three campaigns did not respond to Front Office Sports’s request for comment. These are the sports figures who are filling their coffers. 

Jay Feely

Feely, who kicked in the NFL for 14 years, is running against Democrat Amish Shah, who was the Jets’ team doctor for two seasons when Feely was the team’s kicker. Feely and Shah are vying to replace Republican Rep. David Schweikert, who left his seat in Arizona’s 1st Congressional District to launch an unsuccessful run for governor. 

Trump carried AZ-1 by 3 points in 2024, but former President Joe Biden won it by 1.5 points in 2020, making it a key battleground in the race to control the House of Representatives. Cook Political Report rates the race as “Lean D.”

The district is in the center of the state and includes northeast Phoenix and Scottsdale. Feely won the GOP primary by 14 points with the help of a Trump endorsement. He was initially running in the more heavily Republican 5th Congressional District, but Trump convinced him to instead run in the 1st, sending him into a tight battleground race.

Feely’s campaign says he is running to “fight for border security, protect our freedoms, and put America First.” Shah, a former Arizona state house representative, is emphasizing his medical background and support for universal healthcare. Feely said he doesn’t remember Shah from the Jets but called Shah after their primary victories and praised his civil approach to campaigning.

Feely’s campaign contribution list is a who’s who of NFL characters, including not only owners and front office personnel, but also head coaches and media personalities. 

Giants head coach John Harbaugh donated $2,500 to the Feely campaign, while Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell donated $500. O’Connell was a Jets backup quarterback in the 2009 season, when Feely and Shah were both part of the organization. 

It appears to be the first federal political donation for both Harbaugh and O’Connell, according to FEC records. The Giants and Vikings did not respond to FOS’ request for comment.

Bruce Arians, who served as the Cardinals’ head coach in 2013 when Feely was the team’s kicker, gave $500. Arians and the team released Feely ahead of the 2014 season after he lost the kicking job in preseason to Chandler Catanzaro.

Former Giants head coach Tom Coughlin, who coached Feely in 2005 and 2006, contributed $3,500 to the campaign. Wade Phillips, who was the interim head coach of the Falcons in 2003, when Feely kicked for the team, gave $2,000.

At least nine active owners of teams in the four largest men’s leagues also donated to Feely’s campaign, including the owners of three of his former teams. Cardinals owner Michael Bidwill gave $5,200, Dolphins owner Stephen Ross gave $5,000, and Falcons owner Arthur Blank gave $3,500.

Feely’s other active owner contributors were Patriots owner Robert Kraft ($7,000), Browns owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam ($7,000 each), Broncos owner Rob Walton ($7,000), Cowboys co-owner Stephen Jones ($3,500), Saints and Pelicans owner Gayle Benson ($3,500), and Diamondbacks owner Ken Kendrick ($7,000).

Of these nine NFL owners, seven donate to mostly Republicans. Blank primarily supports Democrats, including a $300,000 donation to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and $3,500 to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Kraft has historically supported Democrats, but his contributions leaned Republican this cycle. 

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell also contributed $7,000 to Feely. Buccaneers GM Jason Licht, who led player personnel for the Cardinals in 2012 and 2013 while Feely was there, donated $2,000. 

After retiring from the NFL, Feely joined CBS Sports in 2015 as a color commentator for college football and NFL games. Feely left the network last year to launch his congressional bid, but his former CBS colleagues have also donated.

Lead CBS NFL broadcaster Jim Nantz donated $3,500 to Feely, NFL, NBA, and college basketball play-by-play voice Kevin Harlan pitched in $200, and Harlan’s primary color partner for NFL broadcasts, Trent Green, gave $500. Nantz hadn’t donated to a campaign since 2019, when he supported a Republican congressional candidate who lost a primary in Texas. He previously gave to George W. Bush in 1999. Harlan and Green have no recorded donation history.

CBS Sports declined to comment on its broadcasters’ political donations.

Other miscellaneous figures from the sports world who gave to Feely include NBA Hall of Famer Charles Barkley ($7,000) and professional golfers Tony Finau ($2,000) and Fred Couples ($1,000). Barkley hadn’t made a political contribution since he gave to John Edwards’s 2004 presidential bid, Couples hadn’t since 2010, and this appears to be Finau’s first donation. 

Michele Tafoya

In Minnesota, Tafoya is running against Democratic Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan to replace Democrat Tina Smith in the Senate; the state hasn’t elected a GOP senator for more than 20 years. Flanagan leads Tafoya by 4.7 points in Silver Bulletin’s latest polling average, and a Tafoya upset would throw a wrench in Democrats’ hopes to take back the Senate.

The election has been dominated by a series of political firestorms in Minnesota. 

In January, governor and former vice presidential nominee Tim Walz withdrew his reelection bid in the wake of a social services fraud scandal in which billions of dollars were allegedly stolen from public assistance programs. Trump used the fraud investigation as a pretense to ramp up ICE presence in Minneapolis. That crackdown culminated in ICE officers shooting and killing two American citizens in January.

Flanagan, a progressive Democrat, defeated moderate Rep. Angie Craig in the primary by nearly 20 points. But she has struggled to shake off voters’ discontent with Walz, whose disapproval has remained underwater.

Tafoya cruised to a primary win over a split field, and her campaign has focused on the welfare story, as well as transgender athletes. 

Tafoya’s campaign wasn’t quite as popular among sports figures as Feely’s, but she still drew in a number of owners and a handful of other notable figures.

Active owners of two Minnesota franchises gave to Tafoya: Zygi and Mark Wilf, co-owners of the Vikings, each donated $3,500, while Wild owner Craig Leipold donated $7,000. The Wilfs have historically donated to Democrats, while Leipold’s contributions have leaned Republican. 

Former Timberwolves and Lynx owner Glen Taylor, who officially sold the team last year after 31 years at the helm, donated $7,000. Taylor was a Republican member of the Minnesota state Senate during the 1980s.

Four other current NFL owners also contributed to Tafoya’s campaign. Cardinals owner Michael Bidwill gave $7,000 to her campaign and an additional $10,000 to associated PACs, Browns owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam gave $7,000 each, Saints owner Gayle Benson gave $3,500, and Buccaneers co-owner Ed Glazer gave $3,500. 

Philip Anschutz, the owner of the NHL’s Los Angeles Kings, MLS’s Galaxy, and Anschutz Entertainment Group (which owns and operates the Lakers’ arena), contributed $3,500. 

Tafoya started her career as an on-air personality for CBS Sports in 1994. She joined ESPN in 2000 and began working as a sideline reporter for the network’s coverage of Monday Night Football in 2004. She made the switch to NBC Sports in 2011, serving as Sunday Night Football’s primary sideline reporter before her exit from the industry in 2022.

One recognizable NBC colleague, former NFL referee and Sunday Night Football rules analyst Terry McAulay, is supporting Tafoya’s campaign. McAulay donated $2,041 to Tafoya, marking a rare foray into politics after his only previously recorded political donations were to two Trump-aligned PACs in 2024. NBC Sports did not respond to FOS’ request for comment.

Outside the NFL, former Jazz point guard John Stockton contributed $3,500 to the Tafoya campaign. Stockton appeared in a campaign video offering his support to Tafoya in May, citing his experience playing against the Timberwolves’ hostile crowd. “I’ve known Michele for a long time,” Stockton said in the video. “She has common sense, she has mature wisdom, and she has a little bit of toughness to boot.”

Stockton was an outspoken skeptic of the COVID-19 vaccine and endorsed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for president in 2024.

Other sports figures, including former NFL head coaches Tony Dungy and Jason Garrett, have also filmed messages in support of Tafoya, though they do not appear to have donated to her campaign.

Mark Teixeira

Teixeira is running to replace Rep. Chip Roy, a House Freedom Caucus leader, in a district Trump carried by 22 points in 2024. Cook Political Report rates the race as “Solid R,” meaning Teixeira is almost certainly headed to Congress next year.

Texas’s 21st Congressional District stretches from north San Antonio to large portions of Austin, and tends to vote heavily Republican. The former baseball star has touted Trump’s endorsement, and top issues on his campaign website include border security, cutting wasteful federal spending, and ending “radical woke indoctrination.”

Texas Rangers owner Ray Davis, who bought the team in 2010, contributed $7,500 to Teixeira’s joint fundraising committee. The Rangers drafted Teixeira with the No. 5 overall pick of the 2001 MLB draft, and he played first base for the team from 2003 to 2007. He won Rookie of the Year and two Silver Slugger awards in Arlington. 

Athletics owner John Fisher also gave $1,000 to Teixeira. Davis and Fisher have long been reliable backers of Republican candidates and causes.

The campaign received $5,000 from the Office of the Commissioner of Major League Baseball PAC, which 24 of 30 MLB owners donated to.

Former Atlanta Dream co-owner Kelly Loeffler, who was briefly a Republican senator from Georgia, gave $3,500. Loeffler sold her stake in the team after widespread backlash from its own players over her opposition to the WNBA’s social justice initiatives in 2020. She currently works in the Trump Administration, leading the Small Business Administration.

The Teixeira campaign did not return FOS’s request for comment.

Teixeira, who led the Yankees to their most recent World Series title in 2009 and finished second in MVP voting that year, has leaned in to his baseball career on the trail. His campaign launch touted playing for the Rangers, and two of the top photos on his website show Teixeira standing on a baseball field and holding a ball. 

Teixeira’s impending election threatens to further cement Republicans’ dominance in the annual Congressional Baseball Game, with Sen. Ruben Gallego (D., Ariz.) telling The Hill in June that the Democrats plan to intentionally walk Teixeira every at-bat should he be elected. 

This series was reported and produced by Amanda Christovich, Margaret Fleming, Eli Kronenberg, Katie Krzaczek, and Dennis Young.