Jim Ballantyne is the vice-chairman of Scottish association football team Airdrieonians, and was chairman of the club from 2002 until June 2015. He also served as president of the Scottish Football League, and serves on the board of the Scottish Football Association.
Ballantyne bought out Clydebank and renamed the club as Airdrie United in 2002. This allowed Airdrie United to take Clydebank's place in the Scottish Second Division. The motivation behind the move was to create a replacement team for the original Airdrieonians club, who had gone out of business earlier that year due to crippling debts. Ballantyne had first attempted to gain entry to the Scottish Football League by applying for the place created when the original Airdrieonians closed, but Gretna were accepted instead.
Ballantyne sold control of Airdrieonians to Tom Wotherspoon in June 2015.