Nashville’s own John Ingram is among the most politically active of professional sports team owners, at least when it comes to contributing to campaigns.

Ingram, principal owner of Nashville Soccer Club, chairs Ingram Industries and comes from a prominent family of Nashville business leaders and philanthropists.

Since 2019, Ingram has donated a total of $164,300 to politicians, overwhelmingly Republicans.

His donations rank him 20th out of 183 professional sports team owners, and first among the owners of Tennessee pro sports teams.

An analysis by USA TODAY Sports of pro sports team owners’ political contributions found that during the 2019-2020 election cycle, they have donated at least $14.6 million to federal candidates. Nearly 86% of those donations were made to Republican candidates and causes. The analysis focused on the owners of MLB, MLS, NBA, NFL, NHL and WNBA teams.

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Most of Ingram’s political contributions went to Republican incumbents and candidates for U.S. Senate, including $10,000 to U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tennessee, and more than $100,000 this July to a political action committee supporting candidate Bill Hagerty.

Hagerty, who served as U.S. ambassador to Japan after being Tennessee’s economic development commissioner, was instrumental in helping lead the charge to get Nashville’s Major League Soccer program off the ground.

He won the Republican nomination in August after a primary against Nashville doctor Manny Sethi. As the race turned particularly bitter in the month before the election,  Ingram made two $50,000 contributions to Standing With Conservatives, a super PAC backing Hagerty’s campaign that launched television ads slamming Sethi.

Ingram has also made recent contributions to Republican U.S. Sens. Mitch McConnell, Bill Cassidy, John Barrasso, David Perdue and Michigan Republican Senate candidate John James.

In 2019, Ingram donated to Illinois U.S. Rep. Dan Lipinski and Oregon U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio, both Democrats.

Through a representative, Ingram declined to comment for the story.

By contrast, Titans owner Amy Adams Strunk did not make any donations to politicians during that period, according to the analysis, but did give $5,000 to the NFL’s Gridiron political action committee, as did executives of more than 20 other football teams.

Herb Fritch, chairman of the Nashville Predators’ ownership group, has limited his recent political donations to Democrats.

Fritch in the last election cycle made $19,700 in donations, including to U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Nashville, former Vice President and presidential nominee Joe Biden, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and Democrats’ Senate Majority PAC.

Memphis Grizzlies’ Robert Pera did not make any donations to politicians, industries or other causes during the period.

Nashville-based Ingram Industries Inc. operates Ingram Marine Group, one of the largest barge operations in the country, and Ingram Content Group, which provides services in the book publishing industry.

Ingram Industries is listed among Forbes’ list of America’s largest companies.

Ingram also is a member of the board of trustees of Vanderbilt University and board chair emeritus of Nashville’s Entrepreneur Center. His mother is philanthropist Martha Ingram.

Although they are not an owner of pro sports team in the state, Tennesseans Jimmy and Dee Haslam own the NFL’s Cleveland Browns and were even higher on the list of top donors, contributing $355,000 and $375,400, respectively.

Reach Natalie Allison at nallison@tennessean.com. Follow her on Twitter at @natalie_allison.

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