COMMISSIONER TAGLIABUE
LEN SHAPIRO
WASHINGTON POST

10-10-97
RE: UPCOMING LEAGUE MEETING

Len Shapiro: What’s on the agenda?

Paul Tagliabue: We purposely set it in Washington to get as many club owners and club executives as possible to see the new stadium. The purpose of the fall meeting is the same as always; to talk about how the season is going and the quality of the game, in terms of the competitiveness of the races and fan interest. We’ll look ahead to the Super Bowl and to the next year. We’ve got a number of big-picture items on the agenda, including television and labor. The big picture in terms of the season is that we’re having a great season. Our Sunday and Monday night games have been phenomenal. We’ve had a lot of games that have been nothing short of amazing. It’s been fun.

Scoring is up. We’ve got new excitement in Tampa Bay and in New York. Scoring is up and so is attendance and TV ratings continue to be very, very strong. Monday Night Football did extremely well against the Yankees-Indians on a national basis. So I think everything is very positive, particularly on the field. We went into the season with a lot of new attractive teams. In the AFC we felt we had more depth than in the last five to ten years. We have a lot of good young players. You can add Kordell Stewart and Mark Brunell to the Drew Bledsoes. With Green Bay and Dallas and San Fran holding their own, you can throw in some of the teams like Tampa Bay who are playing well.

On the business side, obviously we will update them on where we are with television, and in particular how that relates to the labor deal because basically in the last five years with all of the new stadiums that have come on, or are coming on, plus the strength of our television, we’ve done more to grow the revenue currently and for the future than in any five-year period in the history of the league. What we’re trying to do now is use that as a basis for not just living with the current extension of the CBA but how we can have another 5-6 year deal that would make sense for both sides in the league, for low and high-revenue teams.

Football operations has a first of it’s kind session on Wednesday. George Young and others on the Competition Committee will be managing a session for all of the top football operations people -- including Gms and player personnel directors -- to go over everything we’re doing in the football area. Not in terms of specific rules like instant replay, but in terms of our CFL and World League relationships, player development, and college relations. That’s the first time we’ve ever done that at this meeting.

LS: Is there a vote scheduled on the CBA?

PT: We have until December 1, or until we wrap up the television contracts and discuss the TV contracts with the union. Both sides have five days after we’ve had a detailed review of the television contracts with the union to exercise their options to terminate or leave the extensions in place. We could be off into February or March talking with the union about the TV contracts and still looking into terminating or extending the CBA. Instead of doing that we’re trying to see if we can take the strength of all of our broadcasts, and use that as a basis for coming up with a new five or six-year labor deal. We’re not so much focusing on 2000 or 2001 as we are on the first half of the next decade, in terms of putting television and labor in synch and continuing to have stability.

LS: You’re not talking between now and 2000 then?

PT: That’s almost become moot. We’re looking long term and not just short term because of the strength we have on television and with all of the new stadiums. How do we take all of that strength and project it forward to 2005 into a stable new CBA that will work for everybody, not just the high-revenue teams?

LS: The TV negotiations have started in earnest. Can you say anything publicly?

PT: We’ve been focusing on technology. There’s a lot out there with HDTV, interactive TV, satellite TV, and other technological innovations and how that could affect the way we present our game on television. Secondly, we’ve talked about a lot of issues that have to do with other programming; programming geared to high school football players, to young kids and to specialty cable channels that are owned by Disney and Time-Warner and companies like that. It’s clear that networks are pleased with the value they get from us and they are extraordinarily pleased with the size of the audience they get from us. Only the Olympics are comparable. We have the biggest audience across the board except for the Summer Olympics, which is two weeks every four years. It’s perfectly clear that we are number one and we’re going to be treated as number one when it comes to TV.

LS: What’s going on with CBS?

PT: It’s premature to be talking with CBS because our contracts obligate us to negotiate first with the incumbents. Eventually we’ll talk in-depth with them. It’s not just CBS, but it’s the appetite all of the networks have for our programming. Incumbent networks are even interested in expanding and getting additional packages and rights. CBS will definitely be a major player down the road in negotiations.

LS: What about Cleveland, LA and Houston?

PT: Cleveland is very positive. We’ve worked out all of the agreements with the city in terms of the contents of the building. We’ve gone over 50,000 in terms of season ticket sales. We’ve sold 40,000 PSLs. Whatever team ends up in Cleveland will be one of the best supported teams from day one. We’re on track with construction for 1999. The fan interest is building.

Houston is strongly interested in getting this mayoral election behind them. They have made it clear to us that they want to move on with the construction of a stadium down there and we’ll be meeting with the LA people next Tuesday morning.

LS: Do you think Cleveland will be expansion or an existing team?

PT: More people see the wisdom of expansion than the other way around. Everyone recognizes the sentiment of Cleveland for their own team. They don’t want to take someone else’s team. Plus, we’ve stabilized the situations in so many other places with new stadiums, and we’re making progress in places like Arizona. I think there is more sentiment for expansion and franchise stability through the remainder of this decade and well into the next decade.

LA will make a presentation to the Stadium Committee, not to the membership at large, but I’ll be there. We’ve also had a number of discussions with Houston over the last month to six weeks.

LS: Will there be any significant votes or is this just a precursor to March?

PT: I would say it’s a lot of important planning with the NFLPA and where we are with television. Also where your teams are and where we are with stadiums.

LS: How many people are going to see the stadium and why?

PT: The purpose is to see another state-of-the-art stadium and to see what the differences are between Jack Kent Cooke and Ericsson Stadium in terms of the exterior and interior; the configuration of the luxury boxes, the scoreboards, the sightlines, and the restaurants in the endzones. There’s a lot of interest in how this stadium is configured. Plus, it should be a heck of a football game.