Janice S. McNair, co-founder and senior chair of the Houston Texans, the woman who alongside her late husband Bob McNair was instrumental in bringing an NFL franchise back to Houston after the Oilers left in 1996, died Tuesday in Houston at age 89.
Her son Cal McNair, the team's current chair and CEO, announced the death.
"Mom was exceptional," Cal McNair said in a statement. "She exuded kindness, radiated joy, had an endless amount of hope and love, and lived an incredible life centered around faith, family, philanthropy and football. Outside of our family, nothing mattered more to her than her beloved Texans."
Janice and Bob McNair were awarded the Houston NFL expansion franchise in 1999.
The Texans played their first game in 2002, giving Houston, which had been without pro football since the Oilers' final season in 1996, its team back.
Bob died in November 2018, after which Janice became the team's principal owner, a role she held until March 2024 when NFL owners approved Cal as the new franchise principal owner. She remained senior chair.
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell called her "a woman of extraordinary generosity, grace and faith, whose impact on the Houston community and the NFL will be felt for generations."
Coach DeMeco Ryans, who played for the Texans under Bob McNair from 2005 to 2011, remembered the day he came back to Houston in 2023 and Janice welcomed him with "open arms and her signature warm smile."
She was inducted into the Texans' ring of honor in November 2025. She was 89 years old.