Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

Owners focus on issues other than labor For all the hype about the NFL labor situati on and the buildup to las t week 's annual owners meetin g with the demise of the salary cap earlie r this mon th, the subj ect was hardly a majo r theme through th e three days of discussions. Th e comments league officials did make were hardly pressing. Instead, th e tenor reflected th e fact that it' s nearly 12 months until th e collective-bargaining agreem ent would ex pire - not until th e en d of th e next league year - an d not until September 2011 that an y regular-seaso n football games could be lost. FROM THE N F L OWNERS MEE TING O R LAN D O DAN IEL K APLAN Commissioner Roger Goodell described the process as being on ly in th e Iirst quarter, and th e league even canceled a media bri efing from chi ef labor negoti ator Jeff Pa sh. "I wouldn't confuse a lack of urgency with being cavalier an d not car ing," Pash said after the m eetings concluded on Wednesday. "But people und erstand the issues and they kno w there is a lot of time ... so no one is panicking." Pash said negotiations with the NFLPlayers Associati on would con tinue in April. He did not specify where or when any such meetings would occur. The owners spent far more time tweak ing the game's playoff overtime r ules than they did on labor. While some outlets re por ted that the union took issue with the OT move, a u nion spokesman, Carl Francis, sa id the union had no position on th e matter. The NFLPA did send to select reporters during the meeting a list of 10 questi ons to ask the commissioner during his press conferenc es, though the labor-related questions during these exchan ges were largely about process rather than substance.This reporter did ask Goodell a variation on one of the 10, though: whether players should get a share of the proceeds from franchise sales. "They have raised th at issue before, and we have discussed it for several decades, marketing ch ief Tony Ponturo, who also produced the hit rev iva l of "Ha ir." Th e league had to consent to certain licensing ri ghts for the play, such as Packers logos, some th ing Ponturo said recently was in negotiations. In return, the league willenjoy a portion of the gate. Sun Life Stadium, home of the Miami Dolphins, won't haveany formal improvement plans in place when ow ners meetagain in May and award the 2014 Super Bowl . and I am sure it is not un iqu e to the NFL eith er," Goodell responded . "And we are willing to negotiate and dis cuss and reach a fair agree ment, so I am not going to parse out the specifics of an y negotiation." • NE WS OME J OINS OWNE RS ' GRO UP : When Goodell separately was asked who's on th e league's labor team , he fir st men tioned th e usual suspects, incl uding Pash a nd Carolina Pa nt h ers owner J er ry Richardson, the co-chair of the league's labor negotiating committee. But th en he mentioned a wild card: Ozzie New som e, th e former pro bowl tight end Former player Ozzie Newsome has joined ow ners in labor negotiating sessions. a nd cu r re n t Baltim or e Ravens gener al man ager. Newsome has attended five negotiating sessions. In a statement through a team spokesman,Newsome said, "The commissioner wanted someone who is down in the foxhole and who can talk about OTAs [organ ized team activities in the offseason] and training camp. .. . As a former player, I can speak the same language with [NFLPA President] Kevin Mawae." Newsome said he is on call for future meetings. • B OF A DEAL ENDING: Bank of America's six-year sponsorship of the NFL willexpire Wednesday, said Wayn e Weaver , the J acksonville J agu ars owne r an d cha irman of the owners' business ventures committee. Bank of America and some NFL club s were at logger heads over th e bank's pu sh for exclus ive rights to all 32 teams, a practice th e league has moved away from in the last decade. While th e lea gue at one point had hoped to have own ers vote on a contract last October, now th e deal will expire. Weaver sa id th e league is talking to other finan cial service providers about th e category. • NFL PLAYS ON BROADWAY: Th e league will get a cut of ticket sales of th e new play about legendary Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi th at's opening on Broadway later this yea r. Th e play is being produced by former Anheuser-Busch • TA LK S I NCLUD E ON -F I E LD RI GHT S:The NFL's apparel and licensing deal with Ree bok exp ires in March 2012, but th e date is closer than it seems because a company needs about 18 months of lead tim e to get products to market. David Baxter, president of Reebok spor ts licen sing unit On Field Apparel, who was at the meetings Tuesd ay, said either Reebok or its parent,Adidas, could take the new deal. He sa id he did not kno w if the NFL was negotiating with other parties, adding that there is no exclusive window.He pred icted a new deal realisti cally needed to get done by lat e this yea r or earl y 2011. • SUPER QUESTI ON IN MI AMI: The bidding citiesfor the 2014 Super Bowl,which will be awarded at the spring owners meeting in Dallas in May, a re Miami, Tampa and lon g-discussed candidate New York, which would serve to host the first outdoo r cold-weath er Sup er Bowl. Just as int riguing, th ough, is Miami, which played host to thi s past season 's game. The NFL has sa id improvem ents to Sun Life Stad iwn, the Miam i Dolphin s' home,are necessary to keep th e venue a viable candidate for hostingthe event. The Dolphins have talked with local municipal a uthor ities about needed up grad es and how such impro vements cou ld be funded, but Dolphins President Mike Dee sa id no formal plan is expected to be in place in tim e for th e owners' May vote. So would award ing the game to Miami undercut th e NFL's argume nt about th e stadium and ta ke the pressure off the community to fund renovations? "It potentially could take away some of the leverage," Dee said. But, he added, the renovations are not onl y about th e 2014 game, but also about ens ur ing that th e stadium gets 10 out of th e next 44 Super Bowls, as it did with th e first 44. NFL looks at creating home teams for foreign games CMO: Sending same clubs wouldboost fanpassion BY D ANIEL IlAPLAN The NFL is considering designating one or two teams that would regularly travel overseas for in-season games in an effort to create a hometown rooting interest in the foreign markets. The plan is lon g-term and would not be implem ented until a new labor deal is in place at the earliest, but the league appears ready to move beyond just staging a single regular-season game in London every year and expanding that to as many as four international contests.The league also has hosted re gular-season games in Mexico and Canada in recent years. "[What] welearned in the U.K and Mexico and Canada is ultimately you get fans, and to develop that into avid fans ... they have to have a team to root for, a team to love, and the way you do that is to have enough games so one team can come back on a regular basis," said Mark Waller, the NFL's chief marketing officer, who overseesthe league 's international businesses. "If you only have one game and different teams every year, it's not enough. "Imagine, if you had four games in the U.K, andtwoof those games were different each year," Waller said, "and two featured the same teams on a repeat basis." Waller presented that outline to owners last weekat theirannual meeting,Thecom- Str e e t & S m ith's SportsBu s l ness.JOURNAL I www .s ports busines sj ourna l.com ments reflect statements he made last fall about the league's international opportunities , in advance of the 2009London game between New England and Tampa Bay, Currently, the London games are governed by a five-year resolution the league agreed to in 2007 to stage up to two games a year in the city.There has been a single game each of the first three years, The Buffalo Bills, independent of that resolution, have played one home game in Toronto each of the last two seasons. To expand the overseas calendar so aggre ssively would almost certainly mean an addition of one or two extra games annually to the current is-game schedule, Many teams are loath to give up home games on a regular basis, though some teams, includingthe Jacksonville Jaguars and Tampa Bay,are struggling to sell out games. Th e Bu cs recently warned that th e team could suffer its first blackouts since opening Raymond James Stadium in 1998. Waller may be in front of the thinking of NFL owners,at least in some cases. Rita Benson LeBlanc, co-owner of the New Orleans Saints and a member of the owners' international committee, said she would like to see the current setup continue before altering the model. Waller's counter to that appears to be that if the league wants to grow, it can only do so much in the United States, where it already holds standing as the nation's most popular sport. "There is clearly massive upside internationally," he said. MA RCH 29 -A PRIL 4 , 2 010 I III

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