William V. Bidwill Sr., the longtime owner of the N.F.L.’s Arizona Cardinals, who moved the team from St. Louis to the Phoenix area, died on Tuesday in Phoenix. He was 88.

His death was announced by the team.

Part of a fading generation of owners whose main business was football, Bidwill spent nearly his entire life with the Cardinals, beginning as a ball boy when the team was in Chicago. He was named a vice president while attending Georgetown University and went to work full-time for the team in 1960, the year it moved to St. Louis.

Bidwill and his brother, Charles Jr., who was known as Stormy, inherited the team from their mother, Violet Bidwill, who died in 1962. Bill Bidwill bought his brother’s shares and became the sole owner in 1972. He moved the team to Arizona in 1988.

In recent years he had stepped away from running the team. His son Michael is now the team president.