NFL Meeting – Houston, Texas

Commissioner Tagliabue Press Conference

5/15/02

PT:  This meeting was largely centered on a number of different committee reports.  The Competition Committee, our Management Council labor committee, Finance Committee, Business Ventures Committee, which includes our Broadcast Committee, International Committee.  Then we had reports on youth football from our Youth Football Fund staff.  We also had a report on how to service our Hispanic fans better and that is a preface to the program we are having here tomorrow afternoon for all the clubs on serving the Hispanic fans better and fan development in the Hispanic and Latino community. 

We had some discussion on a subject I know all of you are interested in, which is where we are relative to Los Angeles and the meeting that our staff had last week with the Anschutz Group people relative to the possibility of a stadium in Los Angeles.  We talked a little bit about that. 

 Then, in order to help all of our committees keep a focus on what are the realistic alternatives, what are some of the things maybe we should be doing to respond to the interest in the NFL in the Los Angeles area, I have set up a Commissioner’s working group of five owners to counsel with on the NFL in Los Angeles.  Those five owners are Wayne Huizenga, Bob Kraft, Carmen Policy, Jerry Richardson and Dan Rooney.  In the weeks ahead we will be meeting with them and trying to get some sense of their views on how we can better serve our fans in L.A. and ultimately how we can approach the construction of a stadium and eventually possibly having a team back in operation in Los Angeles.

Q:  What is the purpose of the committee? 

PT:  It’s not a committee.  It’s what I call a working group, which is a more informal thing.  Some of the people of the working group, like Jerry Richardson and Wayne Huizenga, were involved three-four years ago when we were looking at Los Angeles relative to Houston, so they have some considerable background.  Others, like Bob Kraft, are involved with television.  So it’s kind of a sounding board and the purpose going forward will be to identify what are the realistic alternatives for the NFL in Los Angeles in terms of a stadium and possibly having a team there.  Also, as I say, to identify initiatives that we might take as a league to serve our fan base better in L.A. during the period when we don’t have a team there.

 Q:  Is this likely to be a privately financed stadium?

 PT:  I’ve had discussions with various real estate development group representatives that maybe there is an opportunity with the private sector, including the Anschutz Group, to get some things done in Los Angeles that we haven’t been able to get done previously.  That’s why we want to explore what the alternatives are.

 Q:  Have you identified potential teams for Los Angeles?

PT:  That is really a level of detail that we’re not at yet and those are the kinds of things we would be looking at going forward and trying to understand.

Q:  Was the possibility of an NFL G-3 loan discussed with the Anschutz Group? 

PT:  I was not in the meeting with the Anschutz Group in our office in New York, but I have a sense of what was discussed and I don’t think it was as specific as G3.  It was more of a sense of if there are multiple investors, including the league, in a stadium in Los Angeles how would that be approached?  It was those kinds of discussions, yes.  G3 in and of itself would not be available here because that by its terms is for building stadiums for teams in their current market.  Before we had G3 we had a policy going all the way back to the construction of Joe Robbie Stadium in 1987 where the league and the teams in the league supported the construction of that stadium financially by waving their entitlement to visiting team share of club seat premiums.  There have been other approaches through the 90’s, including what has become known as Fed Ex Field, for the league to help support the construction of stadiums.  So prior to G3 there were various approaches.  Under G3, it is limited to teams in their existing market, but by analogy to those other efforts that was part of the conversation 

Q:  So that could be a stumbling block to getting a new stadium built in L.A.? 

PT:  Investing some league money in some way, shape or form, or supporting it with Super Bowls?  No, those would be the kinds of things that we would view as opportunities, not stumbling blocks.

Q:  Is it possible that L.A. could get an expansion team?

PT:  There again, that is one of the things that we would be looking at going forward.  The purpose of this group is to assess in a preliminary way, and as a sounding board, what are the realistic alternatives.  I’ve said before, and you have seen this reflected in some of the interviews you all have had with owners here and in recent weeks, that there is a mind-set that 32 is where we are and there is not going to be expansion beyond 32 teams in this decade.  But whether anyone would have the idea of making an exception to that for Los Angeles, given the interest in the league there, that is something that will be addressed in the future.

 Q:  Are you considering the possibility of a renovated Coliseum?

PT:  No.

 Q:  What is the timetable for the Los Angeles working group.

PT:  The timetable is that we are going to work on this as much as we need to work on it.

Question on impact of naming rights and economy on the NFL:

PT:  As Bob McNair told me yesterday, naming rights can be an important supplemental revenue stream and he made a point to me yesterday that Reliant’s naming rights here could be viewed as the reason that the Texans are here because it was part of the financial base from which his ownership group was able to pay the 700 million dollars and without that who knows if the team would be here.  So it can be very important.  It also can be important in another context – to support stadium construction.  I don’t feel that you can generalize about the sports economy.  I think that our assessment of the NFL economy going forward is very positive.  We’ve had some very recent important deals struck, with Pepsi and with Coors.  Going back a little beyond that, with Reebok.  The same is true at the team level.  Teams are finding that there is strong interest in associating with NFL teams and working with NFL teams.  I think it has to do with the excitement that has been generated in the last half-dozen seasons, particularly the excitement coming off last year’s regular season, post-season and the great Super Bowl game we had.  There is a lot of interest in the business sector in associating with the NFL and NFL teams.  So if you look at where some of the naming rights have flagged it’s not sports and it’s certainly not the NFL and it’s not even the general economy.  It really is specific to the telecommunications and dot-com bubble, if that’s what you want to call it, relative to PSINet and some of the other stadiums that have been affected by that one piece of the economy.

 Question on New York-Washington Super Bowl:

PT:  The subject of Super Bowls in New York and Washington and how the membership feels about that will be a central subject at our October league meeting in New York.  The dates are October 30th and 31st.  I have had discussions with our staff on that, with a number of owners who have asked the same questions you have asked, with the Redskins, with the business community in Washington and with Jets and Giants and the business community in New York.  All of those interested parties are going to be preparing presentations for our meetings in New York.  I don’t think there will be a vote.  I think we will have a much better understanding of what the potential is and I’ve said before that the key step that we need to take internally, as a league office, is to come up with a model or a plan for the game that is tailored to New York and Washington.  In each case, what are the resources, what are the facilities, how we would approach the half-time show, things like that, so that you could make certain that field conditions are optimal even in the face of potentially inclement weather.  Then I think we will be able to get a fair reaction from the membership.  What you can’t do is just take the way we run the game in Florida or Arizona or in anther warm-weather site or in a dome and just transfer that to New York or Washington.  That is not the way to approach it.

Q:  If a team wants to re-locate, will it go through this owner group?

PT:  This is an informal working group, a sounding board, of informed owners.  Our policies are the same policies we have always had on team re-location and particularly on Los Angeles.  They were affirmed and set forth in resolutions that the membership approved when the Raiders and Rams moved.  This does not change our policies and our basic structure.

Question on relocation policy.

PT:  The main purpose of this group is to work with my staff and me and then in turn work with the league committees.  The Finance Committee has a principle role under our re-location policy.  Our Broadcasting Committee has had a role in terms of the television implications of re-location.  Those things would remain the same.  This group brings a lot of expertise to the discussion, but doesn’t substitute for any part of our formal process.

Q:  What is the key issue in Los Angeles?

PT:  It comes back to the issue of building a stadium and is there a team that is available to be put in there, whether it’s an existing team or an exception to our approach on expansion.

 Q:  Are you working exclusively with the Anschutz Group?

PT:  I would think that as we go forward there will probably be potentially more than one and maybe several private sector groups with whom we would have discussions because they would have the interest in approaching this opportunity.  That is just a guess on my part, an educated guess.

 Q:  Is expansion a possibility?

 PT:  Someone asked the question earlier about expansion.  There was an assumption when we went to 32 teams that that was it.  Many owners have said and I have said that I don’t see the league expanding in the next decade, but whether someone would see an opportunity in Los Angeles that would warrant an exception, I just don’t know.  People have raised that possibility but that is a long way from being a deliberated idea.

 Question on Arena Football League:

PT:  On Arena Football, we did adopt by vote of the membership the player policy that the Competition Committee had recommended back in March, which we had tabled to take up at this meeting, and that policy was approved.

 Question on the tuck rule:

PT:  The tuck rule was withdrawn by the Competition Committee because they felt it was better to stay with a proven rule and approach to officiating, rather than to venture out in a somewhat speculative way and perhaps blur a line that until now has been quite clear to the officials.

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