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Commissioner Tagliabue Press Conference/League Meeting, New York Paul
Tagliabue: The second subject is one we started to discuss yesterday, which is where we are with diversity and minority hiring in the coaching and front office ranks. We continued that discussion this morning. What we did basically, as a league, was reach a consensus that it was important to have an owner committee on workplace diversity and to work within that framework. That recognizes that teams hire coaches, employ the coaches, and hire their front office people. It’s not a league or commissioner function to hire coaches or hire team front office executives. So I’ve asked Dan Rooney to chair a new NFL committee on workplace diversity. He’s agreed to do that. The members of that committee will be Arthur Blank – Atlanta Falcons, Jeff Lurie – Philadelphia Eagles, Pat Bowlen – Denver Broncos and Stan Kroenke, who is a partner with Georgia Frontiere in the ownership of the Rams and owns NBA and NHL teams in Denver and also has a piece of the Arena team in Denver along with Pat Bowlen, John Elway and others. So those five owners will take the lead and try accelerating progress in the area of minority hiring and diversity. Dan Rooney will say a few words in his own right. He’s intending to get the committee together in Pittsburgh as soon as everyone can clear their calendars. The second aspect of this - to support that owner committee - will be a working group of senior club executives, again, five in number. That would be Ray Anderson – Atlanta Falcons, Rich McKay – Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Bill Polian – Indianapolis Colts, Ozzie Newsome – Baltimore Ravens and Terry Bradway – New York Jets. We felt that was a very important structural change, but one that keeps the focus on where it has to be, which is on the teams, individually and collectively, intensifying their efforts to be responsive to what is required in the workplace here. Dan
Rooney: I would say the owners, individually and collectively, realize this and are most anxious to get on with a proper procedure. This ownership committee is a good idea, a good step. We will get a lot of good ideas. A number of individuals came up to me after the meeting with their thoughts and I told them to put it into a letter form and get it over to me. We want to get started on this as soon as possible, I would say within the next two weeks, but for sure during the month of November. I will exercise my power as the chairman to have this meeting in Pittsburgh. I think that will help. It is a good idea, we’ll get going and it will be good. On
minority hiring …. On the goals for improving minority hiring ………DR: That’s what we’re going to discuss, the procedures we follow and things like that. We want to help the situation. We do want to have diversity in the league. It’s our commitment; I think it’s everyone’s commitment. So whatever that takes, that’s what we are going to do. PT: At least two goals: One would be to have an increase in the amount of diversity and number of minorities in key positions; head coaches, coordinators, and front office personnel. Secondly, see what we might do institutionally or structurally to accomplish that. I mentioned yesterday a training academy, a greater outreach, and some new institutions that might serve those goals for all 32 teams. The premise, what Dan emphasized to me yesterday and again this morning, is that individually and collectively this is a club responsibility. On the mindset and changing the culture …PT: The mindset and the culture, all that has changed. That’s history. It’s changed as much as it’s changed with quarterbacks, defensive backs. We’ve had eight teams with black head coaches. Some of these things have their roots in history. Going forward, when you already have 25 percent of the league that’s had a black head coach it’s about identifying talent. It’s about talent that is highly competitive with respect to race and developing the skill sets that people feel they need. The coaching aspect of it is just one aspect. I think we recognize that getting more Ozzie Newsomes into the league, getting more Ray Andersons into the league, more Michael Hugghues, Kevin Warrens, these kinds of issues require as much effort and focus as the coaching situation. On the committee being formed because of Mehri and the threat of a lawsuit…… PT: I can’t answer that. It might have been formed anyway because we’ve done a lot of things to help diversity. Gene Upshaw has been very supportive. He was here yesterday. George Young became the vehicle for implementing a number of the initiatives we had, the most visible being the coaching seminars, but a lot of other things George did behind the scenes. One of the things, sadly, we had to address in the last year was how do you replace George and who does the things he was doing. Whether we would have come out with an owner committee or some other set of measures I can’t say. I know we would have continued to try to be innovative and do additional things. I think Dan’s conversation with me yesterday, which was that ‘you need to recognize owners feel strongly that it’s their prerogative to pick their coach, but they understand they have a responsibility on diversity in the workplace. So give us [the owners] the tools to make some progress and proceed on that basis.’ I said so what does that mean. He said ‘you’ll figure it out tomorrow.’ I figured it out. It was the five-owner committee and the five senior club members working closely with them. On whether it will work like the quarterback situation evolved …. PT: I think there are some similarities and some great differences. Football players you can see how fast they run, you can see they have a 70 percent completion ratio - what they do is highly visible. There is an evolution from the college ranks into the NFL with players. You don’t have those same types of explicit measuring rods when it comes to coaching and executives. People aren’t performing out in the public every day of the week. So the task of identifying how talented someone is or even knowing the person is out there is a very different task, and then making the judgment that someone functioning at one level can move to the next level is difficult. So yes there are similarities, but there are a huge number of differences, which require a different approach. It’s not something where you can just say benign neglect is going to solve the problem. More on the coaching issue... DR: You see minority people are out there that are definitely qualified to perform. I don’t think we need to step into what you said about the quarterbacking. The one thing about players is that you used to get guys who came up through the ranks as players and then became coaches. They’re making so much money now that they don’t really go into coaching and things like that. I think of John Stallworth, who went into the Hall of Fame last year, who runs a business where he has 300 people working for him. He is a very successful businessman. He would be a great executive, but he is very successful where he is. On Super Bowl in New York and Washington …PT: I do have a better sense, like I said yesterday, on the Super Bowl in New York and Washington. Some of it [the better sense] comes from conversations I had last night when we had dinner with the owners. Some of it comes from what I read at least in one newspaper this morning with Jerry Jones saying publicly what he told me last night about the power of New York and the power of the nation’s capital, the opportunity for the league to associate itself with institutions – Times Square, Broadway, the nation’s capital, the Smithsonian, whether it’s commercial or not commercial. The league as an institution to partner with those types of organizations is a tremendous platform to grow interest in our game and our fan base. I think where the owners of the Jets, Giants and Redskins see themselves right now is that we’re still in the first half of the game. They’ve scored some points here at this meeting. Their presentations both on the stadiums and on their cities and on the potential for those cities were very well received. There was a comment from Lamar Hunt in one of the papers commenting on that. They’re still in the first half of the game, they’ve scored some points, but they’ve played enough games to know they haven’t yet won it. But I think they feel this was a constructive step in the right direction in terms of their interest in hosting Super Bowls. More on the Super Bowl in NYC or Washington …. PT: I think both teams think they are scoring points and moving to a victory. But whether they get there or not, there’s still a lot of cities that want Super Bowls. I think they are on an equal path, both cities are being viewed as attractive opportunities because each in its own way offers a unique opportunity to the National Football League, not just to those teams, if it can be developed right. On G3 stadium financing …………PT: We did not have any discussion on G3. We did have some discussion with our Finance Committee in the last week or so on G3. There is very good recognition in the committee and throughout the league that our stadium construction financing program, and the predecessors to it, have been very effective and served some very important purposes. There is also a recognition that revenues coming out of new stadiums are helping achieve other important objectives like the continuation of the Collective Bargaining Agreement – that as new stadiums are built we have new revenues from stadium sources that we can put into additional stadium construction, put into revenue sharing to support the continuation of the Collective Bargaining Agreement so everyone can spend off the same template on player costs. With those strategic objectives – continuing the CBA and building new stadiums – we have good policies in place. How we fine tune them going forward is something we have under consideration now. On player fines………. PT: We did not discuss it today. So there was no conversation about increasing suspensions or fines. I said yesterday to the owners I don’t intend to change our traditional policies on suspensions. We will continue to have a high threshold before we suspend because it is a severe competitive penalty. The suspension of one NFL game is the equivalent for 10 games in baseball, competitively. We are not going to tolerate repeat violations of the critical rules protecting the defenseless player. The helmet-to-helmet hit we know runs a serious risk of injury to the player being hit as well as the player delivering the blow because of the high velocity, especially when it’s receiver and defensive back or linebacker flying through the air as opposed to the quarterback whose feet are stationary. I did get quite a bit of feedback from owners who spoke to their coaches last night or this morning, and they told their coaches what I had said, that it is the responsibility of coaching staffs to ensure the games are played within the rules and specifically in reference to helmet-to-helmet hits. Every owner, there were probably six to eight owners who spoke to me on this, said their coach appreciated the reminder and was totally supportive, and we’re going to be getting a memorandum to all coaches today on that point. But the coaching staff’s responsibility is to make certain the game is played within the rules and that tactics and techniques that create risk of injury – whether it’s helmet-to-helmet hits, whether it’s leg whips, or such tactics – are not going to be tolerated. On owner reservation towards a Super Bowl in New York …….. PT: You probably have a better sense than I because you’ve spoken to more owners in the last 24 hours than I have about that subject, I’m sure. I got some feedback like I said last night over dinner. I probably learned as much by reading the paper this morning as anything. Yes, I would say that Jerry Jones’s comments are not isolated in the recognition of the power of New York and the power of Washington to be host for a Super Bowl game that can serve the entire league and not just those two cities or those three teams. Like I said, I know the reaction to the presentation Jonathan Tisch made on behalf New York and Dan Snyder made on behalf of Washington as a host city impressed a lot of people, with new ideas and things that they haven’t thought of. On owner reaction to Ground Zero……. PT: I did not talk to any who have been down there. I was on the bus going down [to the stock exchange] with Pat Bowlen, Ralph Wilson and other owners where we went past [it]. Their reaction was the same of most citizens’ reactions. It was one of shock at what had happened and astonishment of the people who had to deal with that tragedy. It really had nothing to do with football or the Super Bowl. On the upcoming trip to Mexico ……………PT: We are going and I think Roger Goodell is probably going with me as well as some of our other staff; I’m sure Doug Quinn and others who are responsible for our international business. We are going to be down there the week following -November 10-11. It’s a continuation of efforts we’ve been making in Mexico to serve our fans better and to strengthen our business partnerships down there, especially with the networks in Mexico. We have a very strong business advisory council made up of leading Mexican businessmen and professionals from Mexico City and other cities, including Monterrey. I’ve met with them in the past. Obviously, I’ve met with the heads of the television networks down there, like Televisa in particular. This time we’ve asked Jerry Jones and Bob McNair to go with us. Jerry’s been down there a number of times because the Cowboys have played down there. He’s been with me in other business meetings on prior occasions. Obviously, Bob McNair has a very strong interest in the subject, not just in Mexico, but serving the Hispanic fans in the Houston area and the southwest. That’s the context, and I think it will be a productive two-and-a-half days. On playing a game in Mexico again. ….. PT: I think that’s logical. When we will play a game down there again, I don’t know. Certainly a matchup between the Cowboys and the Texans in Mexico City would have a lot of interest in Mexico and a lot of interest, as we saw this year, in Texas and elsewhere. I think we can see the population growth in Northern Mexico along the US-Mexican border where there are many sister city relationships that are very strong. High school football is growing in those areas with more and more players in Mexico. Obviously, historically in Texas as well as currently [these players] could have the potential to be outstanding football players, so it is an area of focus for us. As they say, it relates not only to Mexico but also to the Hispanic fans in the United States. On television ……….. PT: We did give a presentation this morning, which Steve Bornstein led, as our senior TV advisor. I participated in it. It was a summary of the current state of the television business, and the changing state of television distribution, including the increasing number of viewers who are watching featured programming on cable, the Sopranos on HBO only being the most recent dramatic example of a cable-based show that’s getting a tremendous audience. That was a long-term look at the changing landscape. Then we did talk about the alternatives we have under our current contracts, since we currently have the option to jettison the last three years of the deal if that made sense to do. We also talked about where we are in terms of the Sunday Ticket package. It was more of an overview. I said some overviews are from 50,000 feet, that one was from 75,000 feet because the primary responsibility in this area lies with our Broadcasting Committee, myself, Roger Goodell and Steve Bornstein. On timeline for decision on network contract re-opener …….. PT: We’ve got do it before Feb. 15 cause that’s the outer limit. I think we’re striving to make these decisions before the end of the calendar year. |