Commissioner Tagliabue
Arlington, Texas Breakfast Remarks
10/25/04

It’s been said by a number of people that this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Arlington, a unique opportunity, a once-in-a-generation opportunity. I’ll leave to others those types of statements but what I would like to do most particularly is share my experiences from around the nation where communities and teams have entered into partnerships of this type, because I think there’s good experience and a good track record that you should be aware of that supports your community’s decision to go forward with this stadium project. I’ll say a few words about the NFL as "America’s passion" and about the Cowboys as "America’s Team." Yesterday we saw why NFL football is most often called "America’s passion." We had two legendary franchises – the Steelers and the Cowboys. You have in the room today a number of great players who were tremendous on the field as well as off the field who made these franchises legendary. When you go to the Hall of Fame, it starts with the coaches - Landry and Noll, and the quarterbacks - Staubach and Bradshaw, and the receivers - Swann and Pearson. And Joe Greene and Bob Lilly. So that was part of the excitement yesterday. But it was also the game itself. It’s our system; it’s our agreement with our Players Association. We’ve had a terrific partnership for about 15 years with the Players Association which has produced labor peace for a period of time that is unprecedented at least in the last three decades. We have great young talent coming into the league. We have a high school and college football system that we think is strong, and we’re supporting youth football. You saw a lot of things yesterday that come together to make our sport America’s passion.

On Saturday I had the privilege of visiting the Optimists Club’s youth football program. Mayor Cluck and former Mayors Greene and Odom and Council Member Van Ravenswaay took me over to your youth football center. It’s just one example of the things that can be done when your community is host to an NFL franchise, the things that can be enhanced in some very positive ways. One of the things that I’m most proud of in the 15 years that I’ve been Commissioner is the creation of what we call the NFL Youth Football Fund. In agreement with our NFL Players Association we’ve set aside about $200 million over a seven-year period. We’ve taken it away basically from the current players in terms of what goes into their salaries and benefits and we’re investing that in youth football. As part of that, we’ve created and endowed an organization called USA Football, which is an independent stand-alone organization that advocates high school and youth football. What you’re doing here and what I saw on Saturday is a big part of our thinking and a part of our vision for the NFL for the future and we have hope that that future vision includes the Cowboys here in Arlington.

Why is this called a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and why am I here urging your support for this project? To me it starts with balance. I said it Saturday and I said yesterday. There seems to be in the agreement that’s been reached between the Cowboys and the city real balance. Balance in investment, balance in incentives, balance in rewards. I think that’s critical. For any agreement to work in the long term there needs to be balance and that’s inherent in the agreement that I see here. But it goes beyond that. I’ve spoken to the Mayor and others about the master planning process that they envision like the acceleration of highway infrastructure, which I know is so important in this region. I think the location of Arlington in the Metroplex between Dallas and Ft. Worth is critical. You know the geography much better than I do but we all know the expression that we frequently hear in the real estate business – it’s "location, location, location." The location here is ideal for the Metroplex region, for your economy and for the Dallas Cowboys fan base. There is an element of cooperation here which I think is very striking, including the fair-share agreement. There’s support from the county and the state. And there have already been references to "Team Arlington." So as I see this, in a sober way, just stand back and take a look at all the fundamentals. You don’t have to be a football fan, you don’t have to be excited about sports. You have to be a fan of Arlington; you have to be a fan of the economy, and for jobs and for your community and for your community infrastructure. And you should support this agreement. When you add all those things together, what it says to me is that the potential is here for the whole to be greater than the sum of the parts. The parts will include not just the Cowboys and the Cowboys stadium but the Rangers and The Ballpark and the other elements that already exist of your entertainment district and other elements that can be added. So when I look at this, I don’t have to be the Commissioner of the National Football League. I think I can look at this on an objective basis and say this is indeed a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity with very solid ingredients.

The second thing I can say is that these types of partnerships have worked well in many, many communities around the country, communities of every size, every shape, every ethnic makeup. The striking thing is that as many of these partnerships as have been struck in the last dozen years, they’re all unique. But they do work when they are well-conceived and when they are well-structured. In the last dozen years, we in the NFL, along with our teams, have built more than 20 new or majorly-renovated stadiums. They include the stadiums in Jacksonville and Nashville which draw on a regional fan base and are spurs to the regional economy. And the stadium in Denver, which again is regional if not statewide to the state of Colorado. And the stadium in Houston - Reliant Stadium, which I’ll come back to - which in its engineering and its design and its potential as a multi-purpose facility is probably the most similar to the stadium that’s proposed here in Arlington. But it also includes a stadium in Arizona, which is going to be basically funded 100% by tax revenues voted on by the public in the past 18 months. And another one that I know is a long way from Arlington but in many ways is very close to what will be in Arlington is the new stadium in Green Bay, the new Lambeau Field. I think it’s a long way because that was the frozen tundra. You all now about the frozen tundra and the memorable Cowboys-Packers matchup in the 60’s. But what I think is similar is the size of the community, the size of the surrounding area, the commitment of the businesses, the types of businesses that support it, the public-private partnership for the new Lambeau Field and most of all perhaps is the football team. The sports and entertainment asset that’s housed in Lambeau Field. The Cowboys are "America’s Team" but you get a lot of arguments about that if you’re in Wisconsin. They feel that from the Lombardi days and up through Brett Favre, that they should at least share the "America’s Team" name. But their stadium has included in it restaurants that are representative of some of the leading restaurants throughout the state. It includes the Packers Hall of Fame, and it’s become a destination for tourism, just the stadium itself, because of the way it’s designed, the way it’s built and the attractions that it incorporates. Those are some of the examples that I look at and some of them are cities where the NFL is new such as Jacksonville and Nashville. Some are cities where the NFL has a long tradition such as Green Bay. But in all circumstances, the key thing is for the agreement to be tailored to the community. To focus not just on football but to focus on community and to focus on the economy and the underpinnings that justify the public investment.

The third thing that I think is critical here is what I referred to earlier as balance. The balance in the investment of public funds and private funds. But let me be more specific. The commitment that the Dallas Cowboys are making here, the private financial commitment to this stadium, is larger than any commitment made by any NFL team in any of the 20+ stadiums that have been built to date with public-private partnerships. When you add the key elements of the commitment together, it exceeds $400 million on the Cowboys’ part -- $325 million of direct investment in the stadium, another $60 million in rent, participation and naming rights, and finally, $16.5 million to invest over a 30-year period in youth sports. I think that, in and of itself, is significant, but what it does is to provide the right incentives to make this project succeed. The Cowboys have had a great history in great stadiums – the Cotton Bowl, Texas Stadium. But the way this agreement is structured and the magnitude of the investment of the Cowboys is the icing on the cake or the insurance policy on top of the project that guarantees that the incentives are there to make this a sound investment for your community.

Let me just comment a minute on youth football. I’ve been commissioner for 15 years and I’ve been involved with the NFL for 35 years. And the thing that has been clear for that three decades+ period of time is the commitment of the NFL to community and the commitment of the players, owners and coaches to community. The partnership between the NFL and the United Way goes back more than three decades. With Roger Staubach and others here, you have before you players who participated in those United Way campaigns and in the United Way activities. But in recent years, we’ve frequently said that the twin pillars of our sport and the twin pillars of the public’s interest in our sport are community and football. And the thing that is common to those twin pillars is respect for the athletes and respect for all of those in the game. So we’ve tried to reinforce that with a major commitment to youth football. Obesity is an issue for our nation. Kids sitting behind computer screens and not getting out and competing is a challenge for some of our young people. So we’ve created our Youth Football Fund. It focuses not just on football but on the academic side of football players. It includes a program called Play It Smart, which was fashioned by the College Football Foundation, and they asked us to partner with them. And Play It Smart is an academic program for high school football players where a teacher is added to a high school faculty with the particular responsibility to work with the other teachers, to work with parents, to work with grandparents, to bring young men who have a commitment to excellence, who have a work ethic, who have a passion to succeed and take those qualities and that work ethic from the football field to the academic side of their lives so they can have two chances to succeed and not just one. It’s working. It’s a program that I would expect would come here to the Metroplex area, could be introduced into your schools, in a partnership between the league and the Cowboys and the College Football Foundation. And perhaps the most striking measure of its success is that in the past six months, we and the College Football Foundation received a $10 million grant from Secretary of Education Rod Paige to invest in and expand this program. It was begun by the private sector, specifically the College Football Foundation, supported by the NFL, and now supported by corporations and by the Department of Education. So when we talk about $16.5 million into youth football, I think that you need to understand that these are dollars that will be well spent, not just on kids in cleats or kids tossing footballs, but to have kids learning leadership values and focusing on their academic performance and the other qualities that we’re looking for in our young people.

Stadiums in Texas, like most things in Texas, have a wonderful history. And many precedent-setting buildings are here in Texas and are a part of the history of sport in Texas. So what you’re talking about in many ways is standing on the shoulders of your predecessors in this state and in this region. Or we can look back and see what the Cotton Bowl meant to football and to sport. We can see what it meant not just in Texas but throughout the nation. Then the Astrodome, then Texas Stadium, then the Alamo Dome, and then Reliant Stadium where we played the Super Bowl last year. Each of these is a shrine in its own way. Doak Walker made the Cotton Bowl what it was when the Cowboys and the Dallas Texans first played there. The Astrodome has been aptly described as the eighth wonder of the world and it has inspired some of the domed stadiums throughout the world, including in Tokyo where we play almost annually the American Bowl NFL game in a stadium that is modeled after the Astrodome. Of course the striking thing right now is that these stadiums, particularly the domes, are not available here in your region and the proposed Cowboys stadium in Arlington would not only bring a domed stadium, would not only add to this tradition of precedent-setting stadiums, but it would be one of the finest, multipurpose stadiums in the world.

What does multi-purpose mean? It means you have all kinds of events. You can scale the size of the building to 100,000 people or to 20,000 people. You can bring it up and down almost like an accordion. You can compete for major college events like the Final Four in basketball. You can expect to host the Super Bowl. What do I mean when I say you can expect to host the Super Bowl? I think the first thing I would say is that if the timeline for this stadium goes forward as anticipated, this stadium and the city of Arlington would be the first official candidate that we would present to our membership to host the Super Bowl in 2011. You can take my words in the context of where we have been playing Super Bowls and where we will be playing Super Bowls which is reflective of the premise of our membership when they’re voting for Super Bowls in this decade. Last year, as I’ve said several times, the game was played in a retractable dome stadium in Houston - Reliant Stadium. And that was in recognition of the team coming back and recognition of the public support of that stadium. This February we’ll be playing the Super Bowl in Jacksonville in a stadium that is a public-private partnership. After the next season, 2005, we’ll be playing the Super Bowl in Detroit in the new domed stadium there, which is called Ford Field. Again, a public-private partnership with a very large component of public funds. And the year after that we’ll be playing the Super Bowl in the new stadium which is now under construction in Arizona, which will be the new home for the Cardinals, again a public-private partnership. If you look back in time, we played the game in another domed stadium, the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, on two occasions in recognition of the fact that that was a major investment of public funds in that state on behalf of the Atlanta Falcons and that dome has hosted not only Super Bowls but was one of the central venues for the Summer Olympics in 1996. So I think the opportunity is clear. You know that the opportunity is clear. I think that the elements of the agreement, the timing for your community, really the core agreements are all extremely promising and extremely sound. I could go on at great length and talk about economic impact. The economic impact of the Super Bowl alone is in excess of $300 million and incremental spending for hotels and restaurants and retailing. But I don’t want to speculate too much about other communities, because as I said I think each of these stadium projects is best understood and best endorsed and best supported if it is evaluated in the specific context of your community. I think the power and the strength of what is being proposed here is the opportunity for your community to take two major league sports franchises, two stadiums, and use that as a catalyst for economic development, for job growth, for acceleration of other infrastructure, all in support of a vibrant future for Arlington at the heart of the Metroplex region.

I’ve been pleased to be here. I know that Cowboys fans were extremely disappointed yesterday but I must say that when I go to games I tell the representatives of the two teams that what I’m cheering for is a hard-fought, close, adrenaline-filled football game, and unfortunately there’s always a winner and always a loser. The Cowboys played one of their best games yesterday but came up on the short end of it. As businessmen, I think you can appreciate where I am on Monday morning. Most of you are striving to get 99% or better customer satisfaction for your businesses. When I meet with representatives from other businesses, whether they be regional or national, most of the conversations center on how we’re going to get above 99% in customer satisfaction. In the NFL on Monday morning, you’re never above 50%, and of course during the season you can never get above 50% in customer satisfaction, except if it’s a statistical quirk. So here we are on Monday – the Steelers’ customers are happy and the Cowboys’ customers are disgruntled. But what I would say to you is that if you go forward with this project, I don’t think there will be any basis for disgruntlement in terms of the contribution that the Cowboys’ stadium in Arlington will make to the future of your community. So go to the polls, start voting today. I’m tempted to say vote early and vote often but that sounds more like Chicago or Jersey City where I grew up. I know that’s not a tradition here in Arlington. Vote once but vote right. Thank you very much. Have a great week.