JIM IRSAY COLLECTION
THE NFL-OWNER COLLECTOR ARCHETYPE: IRSEY AND PAUL ALLEN
It’ s not accidental that two of the most consequential private guitar collections of the modern era were assembled by NFL owners. Both Jim Irsay and Paul Allen approached collecting with the instincts of men accustomed to building teams, evaluating talent, and thinking in systems rather than isolated pieces. But the similarity ends there.
Paul Allen’ s vision tended toward institutional gravity. His collection of guitars, memorabilia, and popular-culture artifacts ultimately found its natural home in a building— what became Seattle’ s Experience Music Project, designed by Frank Gehry and opened in 2000, now MoPOP. Allen believed in permanence through structure. His answer to the problem of cultural preservation was architecture: a place where objects could be stabilized, interpreted, and preserved within a formal civic framework. The building itself cost $ 240 million. The museum itself became the legacy object, absorbing the collection into something designed to outlast its founder.
Jim Irsay’ s instinct ran in the opposite direction. Where Allen built a destination, Irsay built momentum. He was not trying to anchor culture; he was trying to keep it moving. His guitars weren’ t meant to settle into climate-controlled stillness.
The difference is illuminated by an exchange between the two men. After Irsay acquired one of Ringo Starr’ s touring drum kits, he called Paul Allen and said,“ Hey Paul, I’ m so glad you didn’ t go after that drum kit.” Allen shot back:“ No, no— you earned that by yourself. I didn’ t let you get it.” Indeed, collecting, for both men, carried the competitive structure of professional sports. You scout. You evaluate. You decide whether to make the move. Sometimes you step back— not because you can’ t win, but because the piece belongs on someone else’ s board.
Allen died in October 2018, and his museum continues according to the institutional blueprint he laid out. Allen’ s vision survives him because it was designed to. Irsay’ s, by contrast, is inseparable from his presence. The traveling revival works because someone is there to insist that it keep moving— to say yes to risk, to loan, to performance, to exposure. Without that insistence, the model begins to wobble. Unless it can be institutionalized without losing its soul, it threatens to disappear with the man who animated it.
Cyclone of Guitars at Seattle’ s Museum of Pop Culture( MoPOP), formerly Experience Music project— over 700 guitars spiraling skyward, some even programmed to play. A monument to music, motion, and pure creative excess.
20 | SPRING 2026