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Tom Benson

American football executive (1927-2018)

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 27, 2026
Entity authorityQ7814941 ↗
Source-derived summary

Thomas Milton Benson Jr. (July 12, 1927 – March 15, 2018) was an American businessman, philanthropist and sports franchise owner. He was the owner of several automobile dealerships before buying the New Orleans Saints of the National Football League (NFL) in 1985 and the New Orleans Pelicans of the National Basketball Association (NBA) in 2012.

As a sports team owner, Benson had a Super Bowl victory to his credit, via the Saints winning Super Bowl XLIV (2009).

As of October 2017, he had a net worth of US$2.8 billion according to Forbes.

Biography

Early career

Benson was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, to Thomas Milton Benson Sr. and Carmen Pintado. After graduating from St. Aloysius now known as Brother Martin in 1944, he went to enlist in the US Navy at the end of World War II in 1945. After the war ended, he went to study accounting at Loyola University New Orleans before dropping out in 1948.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Tom Benson” as american football executive (1927-2018). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Benson, American and football.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1927, 2018, 1985, 2012—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1927-07-12. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Benson, American and football providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Tom Benson”, the useful work is to connect “american football executive (1927-2018)” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7814941. VIAF identifies the subject as 5521147907510979210008. The Library of Congress control number is n2016057407. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1927, 2018, 1985 and 2012.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  2. Expand the search: follow Tom Benson primary sources, Tom Benson archive and Benson research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Tom Benson” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.