The New Orleans Saints have been sold.

Gayle Benson, the owner of the New Orleans Saints, sold the team to.

Following her husband Tom Benson’s death five years ago, Gayle Benson became the owner of the multibillion-dollar business and took over management of the NFL and NBA franchises in New Orleans. Tom’s daughter and his previous marriage’s grandchildren have been a danger to her control of the NFL’s Saints and the NBA’s Pelicans ever since. They could have filed a lawsuit to contest the will’s legitimacy, which excluded them from his succession plans and named Gayle the sports teams’ heir, up until this Thursday.

Nevertheless, it appears that neither Rita LeBlanc nor her children, Ryan LeBlanc and Renee, the daughter of Tom Benson, took any such action before that time passed. With the deadline having passed, Gayle Benson would have formally combined her ownership of the clubs, which she has stated will only be sold following her passing, provided they stay in New Orleans.

Regarding Thursday’s deadline, neither Renee Benson nor the LeBlanc siblings could be reached for comment. Randy Smith, a lawyer from New Orleans who has previously represented the siblings, also declined to comment. Greg Bensel, a spokesperson for the Saints and Pelicans, did not immediately reply to a request for comment. However, the franchises have previously stated that they thought the strategy that put Gayle Benson in charge of the teams was unassailable.

The 76-year-old Benson, for her part, stated in reports that were released in 2021 by the New Orleans news organizations NOLA.com and WVUE-TV that she intended to establish a foundation that would provide the earnings of the teams’ ultimate sale to philanthropic projects in southeast Louisiana and the surrounding area.

In 2015, a contentious and intricate court dispute broke out, involving the twice-widowed Tom Benson and his spouse Gayle, who had been married for almost 14 years, taking on the relatives known as the 3Rs. The case made headlines for years.

Gayle launched a lawsuit, claiming the patriarch of the family was mentally unable to take over management of his teams and other rich economic interests after Tom Benson told them he was scrapping an earlier plan to give Gayle authority instead of the 3Rs.

They contended that Benson, who was close to reaching the end of his ninety-year life, was becoming weaker and had been tricked by outsiders into excluding them.

In response, Benson’s team stated that he had excellent grounds to remove the 3Rs—who had performed well for him—from his line of succession. Following their dismissal, he made a public accusation that Gayle had been mistreated by his daughter and grandkids following her 2004 marriage into the family.

Judge Kern Reese of the New Orleans state court concluded that although Tom Benson suffered from some age-related cognitive impairment, he was nevertheless competent to make decisions regarding his succession plans following procedures that took place nearly entirely in private. Two higher courts made no changes to the verdict.

Benson prepared a will and testament designating Gayle as his only heir almost immediately following Reese’s decision. The day after Benson passed away, on March 15, 2018, his attorneys filed that will with the court, addressed to Reese personally.

The subsequent legal battle would have most likely concluded similarly to the one fought in front of Reese if the 3Rs had contested the will’s legitimacy before Thursday’s deadline, leading most observers to conclude that such a move would have been unlikely. Pundits, however, noted that given the potential billion-dollar reward for victory, they could also imagine the 3Rs trying their hand at such a case.

The 3Rs were far from defeated, even after the deadline on Thursday passed and they were not successful in the mental competency trial.

In two different cases against their father, they obtained large settlements; in one, they were still being paid as late as fall 2021 for quickly increasing, non-controlling Saints and Pelicans shares that Tom Benson had wrested from them. In addition to other assets, the other settlement granted them ownership over bank branches, a hunting ranch, and auto dealerships, which they subsequently sold to one of Tom Benson’s competitors in business.

Tom Benson settled those cases on the eve of trials that would have required him to testify in public, as attorneys for the 3Rs frequently pointed out. They contended that if his attorneys had been confident, he would not have done so and would have seemed coherent during his testimony.

In their first three seasons with Gayle Benson as owner, the Saints made it to the playoffs, but in the two seasons since veteran quarterback Drew Brees retired, they have failed to make the postseason. Recently, the Saints defeated rival teams to sign free-agent quarterback Derek Carr.

The Saints most likely lost out on a trip to the Super Bowl in January 2019 due to referees’ failure to flag an obvious pass interference late in one of the NFL’s conference championship games.

Less than a year after Gayle Benson took over as owner, the Pelicans selected superstar Zion Williamson, but Williamson has had trouble staying healthy, and the team has only made it to the playoffs once.