She has been touted as Benson’s successor ever since he put her in charge of the Arena League’s infant VooDoo team in 2003. (Her mother, Benson’s only living child, has no interest in football, and Rita’s younger brother, Ryan, prefers ranching.) By the end of the VooDoo’s inaugural season, there was more branding in New Orleans Arena than in an entire season of Bonanza, and Benson LeBlanc was named the league’s top executive.

In the “All Fun League”—as the A.F.L. is affectionately called—the game is almost secondary to the game-day festivities. “From the beginning, Tom and Rita sat together in the stands, having fun,” says A.F.L. commissioner David Baker. “You could see Tom laughing and slapping fans on the back. A lot of that came from Rita. He never acted that way during Saints games.”

The fun has been infectious. The VooDoo led the A.F.L. in attendance in 2007, selling more than 12,000 season tickets, the most in the 21-year history of the league.

The Saints presented more of a challenge. Katrina forced them to find temporary housing for the 2005 season. Four of their home games were played in Baton Rouge. Benson moped through the opener at L.S.U.’s Tiger Stadium, a 21–6 loss to the Miami Dolphins. After getting into a confrontation with spectators and knocking a minicam from a cameraman’s hands, he vowed not to come back for his team’s next three contests. The taunting fans, he said, had made him feel unsafe. When the Saints resettled in San Antonio, Benson was disparaged for refusing to promise their return.

“Nobody likes to be criticized,” he says. “But I’ve been around long enough to realize that life is like a football game. Run up the field and score a touchdown, and everyone cheers. Fumble the ball and lose the game, and everybody boos. Who wouldn’t rather be patted on the back and loved than kicked in the ass?”

The butt-kicking escalated following the departure of two high-ranking executives who had fought to keep the Saints in New Orleans. One resigned in October 2005, after claiming that Benson not only opposed giving season-ticket holders refunds but also, despite a pledge to remain loyal to New Orleans, hoped to move the team permanently to San Antonio.

Both of their jobs fell to Benson LeBlanc, who set up shop following Katrina in the basement of San Antonio’s Alamodome, amid homebuilder shows and high-school-band conventions. She held the business operation together by streamlining the marketing department and broadening the Saints’ base to include the entire U.S. Gulf Coast. She reached out to the devastated New Orleans community through philanthropy and youth clinics. And she spearheaded an initiative to track down displaced season-ticket holders and persuade them to return.

Capitalizing on the attention Katrina had brought, Benson LeBlanc and her staff, together with N.F.L. marketing maestro Frank Vuono, brought aboard a host of national and international sponsors. She helped form the Saints Business Council, a group of 27 local leaders who bought tickets, luxury suites, and sponsorships. To promote New Orleans, Benson LeBlanc and her marketing team staged rock concerts, the splashiest of which marked the official reopening of the Dome, headlined by U2 and Green Day.

Benson LeBlanc’s greatest innovation may have been making tickets affordable for more fans. To reflect the demographics of the post-Katrina market, the Saints offered 25,000 tickets for under $35 apiece, with many as low as $14. That’s about $61 less than the average price of an N.F.L. ticket. Not only did the Saints sell out every game in the Superdome last season—a franchise first—but they now have a waiting list of more than 32,000 for season tickets. On top of that, all 137 luxury suites—ranging between $40,000 and $148,000—have been leased for the 2007 season. “Disasters clarify what’s really important,” says Benson LeBlanc. “Katrina made us expand our relationships with groups and businesses, and focus on inclusion. People responded and came together.”