COMMISSIONER TAGLIABUE INTERVIEW
WITH JERRY DI PAOLA, TRIBUNE-REVIEW, OCT. 29, 1997
How desperately do the Steelers need a new stadium?
They need a new stadium in order to survive the next decade or two.
What are the ramifications of this vote coming up next week? What do you see happening if they can’t get the new stadium right away?
It is hard to know. The Rooneys are so loyal to Pittsburgh and their roots are so deep that I think they will continue to try to work something out in Western Pennsylvania. The real question is ultimately whether they can continue to own the team or not because we have seen what has happened with individual family ownership in the other sports. Peter O’Malley had to sell the Dodgers in Los Angeles.
We have a shrinking group of individual family owners in the NFL. We had to change our ownership policy earlier this year to allow multi-team ownership for Wayne Huizenga and Paul Allen. I’m sure there are going to be additional multi-team owners. Eventually, it becomes a question of the ability of the individual ownership like the Rooneys to continue to own teams or do they have to sell the teams?
What, if anything, has Dan Rooney expressed to you about the possibility of retaining ownership, as we know it now, if there is no new stadium?
He obviously would like to continue to be the owner. It is part of his blood and part of his roots. It was his father’s team and he hopes to pass it on to his children. But you can’t survive if you don’t have the economic ability to do that, which includes a first-class stadium in this day and age.
Three things are going on in sports that have brought us to where we are:
The key with the new stadiums is that they really depend upon widespread support at different levels. It involves the support of the corporations, the smaller mid-size businesses and the fan support. If you look at Kansas City, with the Chiefs being so successful, you see that structure where every element of the business community in a wide regional area is supporting the Kansas City Chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium.
That is a model that can work in an area like Pittsburgh. It involves outreach to a wide region and outreach to every level of the business community plus the fans. But if you don’t have the facility that permits you to do that, you are in trouble.
You have a seven-city win streak with stadium votes. To what do you attribute that?
In every one of those cities, they put together a well-thought out and balanced plan. In virtually every instance, there was a major component of economic development. San Francisco was the most recent example with the mall development and the very large incremental sales tax revenues from a growing retail sector that will surround the new Candlestick Park.
In simple terms, it was the fact that the legislation was well-thought out, balanced and broad-based in the sense that it involved a number of positive elements for the community.
The initiative in Pittsburgh and the 11-county area is very similar. It’s a plan in which the stadiums are only one element of economic development. That is the reason most of those have been embraced by the voters. In virtually every case, the process of understanding the proposition, the way the funds were going to be used and the sources of the funds, was an educational process. Once that was completed, the voters supported it.
Is this the toughest fight?
They have all been tough election fights. Mostly it has been a process of education and a process of debate and dialogue. Ultimately, people have seen the merits of what is being presented because they have been well thought out plans.
In Tampa, it wasn’t accomplished the first time through. Initially the county council geared the entire proposition to a stadium and a car-rental type tax that was the primary focus. That was vetoed by the state legislature. Then, they went back to the drawing board and came up with a plan which had two elements. It was more comprehensive in terms of how the bonds were going to be used and it was a much more broad-based set of sources of funds, including what you have in Pittsburgh, which is the commitment of the Steelers and the Rooneys to put $50 million in as a private-sector contribution.
In Cleveland, other factors were involved. But I think the Cleveland referendum was on its way to passing even before Art Modell made the announcement about Baltimore. That certainly was the view of the mayor and the governor there.
A lot of the opponents to this tax say that taxpayers shouldn’t have to fund private enterprise, but this is more than just private enterprise. There are other public projects that will be funded here. Is that correct?
You know the details with the 11-county incremental sales tax revenue and the 75-25 split. It’s very broad based. That is what has appealed in most of the other markets. People understand there is an appropriate mix between public and private sources of funds to make this kind of infrastructure work – whether it is infrastructure for industrial parks or a sports and entertainment complex or a stadium and retail complex. It takes a mix of things to complete those projects.
In the 1960s these types of projects were being done virtually entirely with tax money through the tax-exempt local bonds. That is probably how Three Rivers Stadium was done. Now we have moved toward a much bigger share of the cost coming on the private sector, so there has been a privatization on the cost of these stadium facilities in the ’90s that didn’t ever exist before.
We have tried to work with our teams to do that, and our union has worked with us, where a lot of the revenue that would normally go to the visiting team and in turn go to the players is now plowed back into stadium construction. When we have the club seat premiums in the new stadiums, the union has agreed that it will not go to the players and we have agreed that it doesn’t go to the visiting teams, it goes to the payment of stadium construction costs. So we have tried to work on the league side to privatize an increasing piece of the cost of these new stadiums.
New stadiums can bring other benefits to a region. I’ve seen how Cleveland and Baltimore have benefited. What are some of those benefits in your view?
There are two levels. One is the direct economic benefit which usually comes best when you link it to other development in the community. What has been done in Cleveland and Baltimore is probably going to work out to be a textbook example of how to link projects. In Baltimore they are linking the stadiums with the Harborplace development and the national aquarium. In Cleveland, they are linking the stadium development with the Great Lakes Science Museum, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the new convention facility. It is the linkage of these facilities and the economic development that comes with it.
The second thing is the attractiveness of a community for businesses eventually to locate there and expand there. That has been a big factor in Carolina and Jacksonville, where the addition of an NFL team has continued and strengthened their ability to get the high-tech and information businesses there. Those are the types of businesses that most areas are looking for. If I talk to the Mayor of Charlotte or Jacksonville, or other people in both of those communities, they say the key thing the NFL has done in those communities is to enhance the attractiveness to businesses to expand or locate in those areas, because employees in turn have pro sports as part of the quality of life. Obviously they want good schools, they want good housing and they want other things that go into quality of life.
Do you put much stock in the recent polls?
I have not spent much time studying the polls and frankly I did not spend much time studying the polls in the other communities where we had a seven or eight-city winning streak with referendums. I have seen some of the polls, but the thing I have learned in every one of these situations is that it is a process of education and explanation. It has to be done very intensively. When it is done, these things have prevailed. When it is not done, you can miss the opportunity to do something that is constructive over a pretty wide area.
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Is instant replay coming back at any time?
The preseason experiment that we did a year ago with the monitors on the field has some promise and we will probably take another look at that as a way of getting a consensus. It would have to be a very narrowly based concept which would involve a minimum of interruptions. It might almost be a concept limited to what you would define as game-breaking plays. That is more of an art than a science. That sort of a concept with a monitor on the field might get passed some time in the future.
Is it more coaches saying yes and owners saying no on this issue?
No. It is more of a mixture. The coaches are as concerned as anybody about the excessive interruption of the game. They are sensitive to the fan interest of having a good fast-paced game but, from the coaches’ standpoint, the interruption of the game with instant replay gives the defense an advantage. We prohibit the networks from taking commercial breaks once a drive begins because the feeling is that drives should be uninterrupted once the offense gets momentum.
On Monday night, we saw Green Bay react to the crowd noise in New England and go to the no-huddle offense. They had a 99-yard drive. From a coaches’ standpoint, if you interrupt that kind of momentum and that type of an offensive tactic with instant replay for a marginal thing, you have given the defense a huge advantage and you have skewed the game in a way you don’t want to skew it. Quite a few of the coaches are concerned about that, which is why the coaches support the monitor on the field and the very limited review rather than the old system.
If you can get an expansion team in Cleveland in 1999, would it be paired with another expansion team, or would you expand to 32 later?
We would go for a phased expansion and expand to 32 later with Cleveland in 1999 and then figure out when and where to go to 32. It would involve a mixture. They are on their way to building a stadium in Houston. We are trying to get a stadium built in Los Angeles. We are trying to solve problems with stadiums in Minnesota and some other places. It would be a phased thing and might even eventually include a hard look at Canada and Mexico.
Would 32 teams be the limit for several years?
I think 32 would probably be the limit for at least a decade for many reasons.
What do you see the salary cap doing next year?
Obviously it is going to go up. At this point I don’t have any numbers because where television is going to come out or how we will spread the revenue within the cap is not yet known. It is certainly going to go up, and probably substantially.
Can you comment on the Greg Lloyd and Keenan McCardell situation. Have you had a chance to review the tapes?
I haven’t reviewed the tapes. Other people have done that. The reason it has gotten so much attention is because taken at face value, it looks like something that happened off the field during the week became a factor in how the game was played on the field on Sunday. That shouldn’t happen. If something happens off the field during the week, it should be brought by the player to the attention of the coach or management. Management, in turn, should work with their security people and our security people if it involves some kind of a phone call to a player’s home. Those types of things should be addressed off the field and should not mix with on-field conduct.
To your knowledge, Greg Lloyd hasn’t brought this to the Steelers’ or the NFL’s attention as of today?
As of game time Sunday, my understanding was that it was known to him but certainly not known to me or others in my office to a level where something could have been done about it to avoid anything happen on the field.
It only came to my attention after it came to the attention or our staff.