Commissioner Tagliabue Press Conference Prior to Chicago
Economic Club Speech, December 16, 1998

PT: With the President’s announcement of the bombing, it’s going to be a somewhat more subdued evening, but I’m still very privileged to be part of the Economic Club’s annual December dinner. I spoke with members of the club earlier today about the state of the league and some of the history of the league, a lot of which focuses on Chicago going back to Mr. Halas in the early 20’s. And to bring everybody up to date in terms of where we are with our television, the future of television, the future of technology, our Collection Bargaining Agreement, stadium development around the country, and ways to provide great fan service.

So it’s going to be an overview tonight of some history, some look to the future, some discussion about the state of the league, and probably a question or two about instant replay.

I spoke several years ago at the New York Public Library to a very distinguished group and I was told by the president of the library that they wanted to hear about ethical issues in modern sports. I spoke about that subject for some length and predictably the first question was on replay, so I would not be surprised if tonight we have a similar reaction to my pearls of wisdom.

Question: Regarding focus of the meeting.

PT: This meeting is really focusing on the Economic Club. It’s really a conversation with the business community here in Chicago. It’s the way we engage the business communities in a number of other cities, recognizing their importance to what we call public/ positive partnerships to support our teams. That’s really the focus of this meeting.

PT: On the chances for a stadium, it really depends on a lot of hard work, a vision and partnership. That’s the key. What we’ve learned around the country, whether it’s west coast, east coast, north or south, is that partnership across the community – public sector/ private sector - is really important. Eventually, that will have to be the way a solution is developed here, a truly long-term 21^st century replacement for Soldier Field.

Question: Regarding Mayor’s suggestion about Oakland Raiders.

PT: The Raiders signed a 15-year lease note and I think that speaks for itself.

Question: Regarding Raiders move to Chicago.

PT: At the moment we have enough issues trying to address the future of one team in Chicago, so that’s my focus. Creating good conditions for one team in Chicago to operate.

Question: Regarding instant replay.

PT: I said to the Competition Committee yesterday, and I’ve said quite a few times in the last 10 days, that we’ve done our experiment in the preseason partly to keep alive the option to have instant replay in the second half of the season. If we had taken it up in our October meeting, which we did not do, there’s a possibility that we would have had it as a postseason option. The important thing from our standpoint was to have the option available, then let the clubs decide. I emphasized to them yesterday the coaches challenge system, which is an insurance policy type system that applies to only a couple plays in a game. The feeling was that it was unnecessary to do it and it was too much of a departure from our rule-making process and too much of departure from how we like to run the competitive parts of our schedule. People are comfortable with our postseason officiating. We have our best officials out there and we played close to 75 postseasons without instant replay and we’ve been extremely successful. By 1999 I hope that we can get a consensus on a good replay concept and implement it. That would be for the regular season as well as the postseason and hopefully we’ll get something that will stay in place for many years to come.

One of the challenges for the officiating today is that they’re held up to a standard of perfection which is set by slow-motion television, zoom lenses and tremendous coverage by the networks. It gets better and better as each new network comes into the mix. First FOX then CBS and of course ESPN, a fabulous sports network. The officials get held up to a standard of perfection. So what we need to do is to turn the technology to our advantage, and use it intelligently rather than as a point of criticism for the officiating.

PT: In the big picture I don’t think officiating ever becomes a major issue and the teams recognize that. It becomes a passionate issue on a given Sunday, or a given Thursday as it was on Thanksgiving, or a given Monday night or Sunday night. Our teams are so passionate about winning and there’s so much energy and effort that goes into playing pro football. It’s a tough, competitive game. People come out of games that are emotional. When you sit down with the coaches after the season, the ownership and general managers, everyone realizes that San Francisco was the team of the decade in the 80’s because they were the best team, not because they got breaks out of the officiating. The Redskins had a great football team because they were the best team. Same with the Bears. They were there because they had Walter Payton, Jim McMahon and others, not because they got breaks from the officials. That’s the bottom line. Teams beat teams and officiating becomes what it should be.

PT: I don’t think there have been. There were two games in two weeks. I talked to Roger Staubach last week in a meeting in Washington and in about five minutes he recalled about eight games that were decided against him by the officials, including the Super Bowl game. This is part of the mythology of sports, we was, "w-u-z" robbed. That’s part of what sports are about. I think this year there has been more controversy for one simple reason, the coin toss on Thanksgiving. Phil Luckett is an outstanding official, his crew is an outstanding crew and they have been having a great year. The moment was so important because it was the beginning of overtime. It was a hard fought game on national television and it seems like such a simple routine thing and yet it was a critical thing, who gets the ball first. That became a national story and a national event that people couldn’t understand. I talked to many officials since then and they said it’s not always the simplest thing to get done. People are shouting, you hear things and you’re not sure whether it’s coming from the sidelines or the players. Nonetheless, that seems like a simple thing that should have been done easily, but it didn’t and that set a backdrop for the calls that took place the following two Sundays. That put an edge to what we normally don’t have.

PT: The perception was the problem driven by the event of Thanksgiving. We always review the officiating. We review it at the end of the preseason and we send out memos to the clubs on rules and interpretations. We always review the game and officiating in October in preparation for our fall league meeting. We did that this year and things were normal. Then on Thanksgiving Day with that national audience watching it was something that was seemingly simple but critically important because it’s the beginning of overtime. Had that been a 12:01 kickoff it would have been a different story. The fact that it’s the beginning of the overtime and the perception is that whoever gets the ball is at a big advantage created the uproar. As the statistics show whoever gets the ball doesn’t matter that much. Half the time the teams that win in overtime are the ones that first get the ball, and the other half of winners are ones that didn’t get the ball first.

Question: On instant replay.

PT: That’s probably the direction that we’re heading -- with four sideline monitors on the 20-yard line on both sides of the field and four positions on the field with some type of eighth member of the replay crew. They would be able to look at the television footage and call down to the referee, or take a call from the referee.

PT: No. The schedule was focused on the Economic Club and the business community. I said several weeks ago when the Bears were playing in Detroit, with the number of things behind us like the Denver initiative, I hoped that I could play a constructive role here.

PT: We are best as a facilitator. We’ve had a positive impact as a facilitator in Tampa, in Seattle and several other places. We were helpful in bringing people together in the business community, local leadership and statewide leadership. I testified in the legislature in Florida and worked with the Mayor and the Chamber of Commerce. In Buffalo, where we had a major renovation of the Bills stadium, I interceded with the business community and they were very responsive. I would say ‘yes,’ sometimes these stadium issues become over-personalized in a sense. They’re not personal issues. Whether a team is in an up-cycle, mid-cycle or down-cycle in terms of playing performance, they really are questions of how you gather together community resources, what your priorities are, what kind of multi-purpose uses you might want to design into the stadium to get the maximum benefit for the community.

Question: Regarding conversation with Mike McCaskey.

PT: We’ve had on-going discussions with Mike, more frequently in recent months and I think he’s quite receptive. There’s a growing understanding in the league that these are a), important subjects, b) complex subjects and c) that you can learn from experiences in other communities, including partnership models and business models.

Question: Regarding other NFL cities.

PT: A city like Chicago is unique and that’s important to recognize. The cities that you can look at are some of the longstanding urban centers, Baltimore, Cleveland and Detroit come to mind. Cities like Pittsburgh and Philadelphia where the initiative is in the state legislature now for baseball and football stadiums in Pennsylvania. Detroit would be a good example because the two new stadiums are being slated to be built downtown after a long period of time where the Lions were out in Pontiac. In many of the older cities there’s a growing recognition of the importance of continuing to invest in infrastructure. There’s a real vitality and vibrancy in a lot of cities. There wasn’t 10 or 15 years ago. Chicago is obviously a vibrant town and it has always been a great place. In places like Detroit where there’s a large population moving to the suburbs and businesses moving to the suburbs, now it’s coming back downtown and there’s a lesson that can be learned from some of those areas.

Question: On the NFL playing at Comiskey Park.

PT: I don’t know a lot about the specifics of the design, or the capacity of Comiskey Park. I do know that the geometry of a baseball stadium is completely different from the geometry of new football stadiums that are being built, and the very different needs in terms of fan services. Certainly, when you’re at some of the outstanding new stadiums in the NFL, and I would include the one in Baltimore that just opened this year and the one opening next year in Cleveland, you compare those with the characteristics of the baseball stadiums that are regarded as state of the art (Jacobs Field, Coors Field,…) and that it just doesn’t work.

PT: Based on what I know, I don’t see much of a comparison between Kevin Greene erupting emotionally during a game and what occurred with Latrell Sprewell. I read a lot about the Sprewell incident. I spoke to Jerry Richardson yesterday about the Kevin Greene incident. I didn’t see it. I was attending two games in Florida. I did see some footage yesterday that our staff did show me, but when I spoke to Jerry and he described what had happened from his perspective and what the video showed I think the response from the Panthers was very appropriate.

PT: One of our big challenges is continuing to have the great television that we’ve had since the league took over control of television in 1961. We’ve been unique among all of the professional leagues in controlling all of the television centrally and at the league level, creating great national interest in our television, and sharing the television revenue equally among all the teams so that the Packers get as much national television revenue as the Bears and Jacksonville gets as much as the Giants. Our small-market teams have to have a sound economic base. I think that’s one of the great things about the NFL. But as we look ahead and we look at the internet, and we look at the potential for the convergence of television and the computer and high-definition television, you have the proliferation of channels, you have television moving from broadcasting to a mass audience on a limited number of channels, to narrowcasting with dozens if not hundreds of channels.

Question: Do you have any plans to meet with the Mayor?

PT: I don’t have any plans, but I would certainly be open to that if at some point in the future the business community or the Mayor or anybody else thinks it would be constructive. In San Francisco, where a team was extremely successful, it was difficult to get a consensus on the stadium plan and Mayor Brown finally did take the lead there and they did pass a referendum. In other cities where the team was performing poorly by comparison a consensus developed on a new stadium such as in Tampa. Atlanta got the Georgia Dome as part of planning for the Olympics and as part of the extension of the World Congress Center and of the convention capability in Atlanta, long before Dan Reeves turned the team around. You have to try and separate the stadium issues and the benefits to the community from the stadium project from both the performance of the team and from different personalities.

Question: Regarding Mayor’s involvement in the NFL.

PT: I think Mayor Daley has shown here that he’s a strong leader for Chicago, as have a number of other mayors, Mayor Archer of Detroit, Mayor White in Cleveland, Mayor Rendell in Philadelphia, Mayor Murphy in Pittsburgh. We’ve had good relationships with a lot of these mayors, Mayor Morial in New Orleans, and, as I mentioned, Governor Pataki. If we can be constructive and work with a mayor for whom we have great respect, such as Mayor Daley, that would be a plus. That would be consistent with the type of partnerships that we try to develop around the country.

Question: Regarding Tim Couch and declaration dates.

PT: I’m not totally on top of all the specifics of what Tim Couch requested. But in the past we’ve had very few exceptions and very few modifications to our rules and declaration dates. Unless this was something very unusual here, we would basically stick with our existing policies.