"No, I don’t have any sense of embarrassment. Reggie will be in the new ownership group with the Wilf family and the others. Under our procedures, the owner has the primary responsibility to negotiate the sale of the team. It is not our prerogative to interfere or second guess judgments that an owner makes in terms of either who the buyer is, or how the transaction is to be financed. When these papers were presented to us, there was a clear opportunity for the deal to get done. It was a question of liquidity, not really a question of Reggie Fowler’s net worth. I guess there were certain things that he had hoped to be able to do, and expected to be able to do in terms of liquidity, and that necessitated the need for the Wilf family to step up and be the general partner and Reggie to participate as a limited partner."

"When I met with Reggie Fowler early on he emphasized to me he didn’t want to be viewed as an African-American owner. He wanted to be viewed as an owner. He felt that his business record and his interest in football transcended race. That was his perspective, and I think that’s the way to view it. At the same time, we’ve had African-American owners in the limited-partner position. We have Deron Cherry in that position with the Jacksonville Jaguars now. We had another gentleman in the Carolina Panthers ownership at one point. I think everyone feels that it would be nice to continue to diversify our ownership, and to have an African-American businessman in the general partner position. I think we’ve ended up with a very, very strong ownership group led by the Wilf family, which has business interests in that part of the world. They are really high quality people, who I think understand the importance of community and giving back and philanthropy. With Reggie in the group, I think in many ways we ended up with the best of both worlds."

"We had a lot of discussion. I think what we did at this meeting is get to the point of identifying a couple of structural changes in our league arrangements that could really work. I think we have a much broader consensus on which are the one, two or three possibly structural changes that could work. I think we also have a better understanding of what’s critical in terms of teams being competitive on the playing field under the salary cap and what kind of assistance the lower revenue clubs would need under different CBA arrangements to continue to be competitive. The whole purpose of this system is to make sure that there are equivalent opportunities for the players with all teams in the league in terms of salary and compensation, and there’s an equivalent opportunity for the fans to start training camp with the understanding that their team can not only compete, but can win it all. I think we’ve made progress on both of those points at this meeting.

"We have five of them scheduled. One in June, one in July, one in August, one in September, and one October."

"I think that a collective bargaining agreement could be negotiated subject to the owners’ approving a revenue-sharing or burden-sharing, or cost-sharing plan that would be in sync with the CBA. As a practical matter, I think they both have to be done simultaneously, but in terms of sequencing, we could either get an internal agreement first and then get an agreement done with the union, or we could get an agreement done with the union subject to the internal agreement. Either one could work."

"I have spoken with Gene Upshaw and we’re going to have more meetings in the weeks ahead. I think we have an opportunity to spend a lot of time now that we’ve got our four television contracts done, which was extremely time consuming this spring. We have all of our league meetings behind us, the March meeting, and this May meeting, plus all the committee meetings, including the combine meetings. I think we have a chance now in the next six or seven weeks to work closely with the Players Association to see how we can narrow the gap financially and conceptually on some of the CBA issues by mid-to-late July. Then we’re going to have a league meeting in late July, another one in mid-August, another in early September, and then we have our full meeting in late October, and hopefully, by then, will be signing an agreement and not looking like pumpkins."

"The comments that Ralph made recently in one on the newspapers were a synopsis of a speech that he gave at our league meeting in Atlanta on April 19^th. I don’t have to read the newspapers to understand after 37 years how owners feel."

"I think I’m concerned any time negotiations break down, which seems to be the case in New Orleans and Louisiana. I’m expecting to talk to Tom in the next couple of days about his sense of where they are, and I hope to speak to the governor as well and see if they can get back on track."

"Yes."

"I think that one or more of these congressional committees will report out some kind of bill, first at the sub-committee level, and then at the committee level. At some step in the process the bill will be amended, and we’ll see what happens from there."

"I haven’t seen what Senator McCain introduced yesterday. Obviously, as we said when we testified before that committee a year ago, we have a lot of respect for their thoughts and we’re going to factor them into our thinking. I wouldn’t want to comment prematurely until I see the entire bill."

"I think we have made progress both in terms of getting to three and starting the process of zeroing in on a final deal, and the progress we’ve made not only in terms of not just getting definitive term sheets done, but addressing the underlying issues that have to be resolved – environmental, architectural design, cost issues that get reflected in the term sheet. I think we’ve made good progress, and certainly we’re going to keep a focus on that and keep that process moving."

"Right at the moment the only timeline I have in my head is the five meetings on labor issues."

"I think looking at the super-site plan as an abstraction, the answer would be no, we don’t tend to vote on abstractions. I think we would vote on any proposal that the Dolphins would bring in that would entail presenting actual Super Bowl games at that site. I know that Mr. Huizenga has the idea that the commitment to a couple of Super Bowls over a period of years would be a critical element of going forward to making an investment in that site, which I think is a sensible way to approach it. We’re gong to be working with the Dolphins, with Mr. Huizenga, with Joe Bailey, along with their consultants and see if we can take the concept and link it to a couple of Super Bowls and then perhaps submit that for a vote."

"One example would be to put in place a freeze on any further growth of unshared revenue as a percentage of the total, and in conjunction with that kind of freeze some formula for sharing any portion of the currently unshared revenue that would exceed the freeze level. A second concept would be to have sharing of all revenue on some kind of a blended rate. Right now, we share ticket receipts and some other receipts, 66% to the home team, 34% to the visiting team, and then the 34% is pooled and shared equally. Then, at the other end of the spectrum, some unshared revenue. We have a 66-3 and 100-0 split. You could have a blended rate that might be 80%-20% or something like that where all revenue would be shared, 80% to team that generates it, 20% to the other team. Television is shared equally. There are different ways of having a blended rate that I think would address some of our internal issues and also give us the ability to ensure the Players Association that their concerns about revenue disparity are being addressed."