9/9/99 – Washington, D.C.

PT: Good afternoon. The committee met this morning. We had 12 members present plus Dan Snyder who I had invited to attend as an observer since the meeting is being held here in Washington. We updated the committee on all of the alternatives that are out there. That includes Carson, the Coliseum, Hollywood Park, Los Angeles, Anaheim as well as Houston. We will be meeting on Monday in New York with ownership candidates and that will include Ed Roski and Eli Broad, Michael Ovitz and Ron Berkle. Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas will be part of the meeting representing the Coliseum and their ownership applicants. We are going to be meeting with Marvin Davis or a representative of Marvin Davis relative to Hollywood Park. We will be meeting with Robert McNair relative to Houston and possibly public officials from Houston. On our side it will myself, Jerry Richardson and Bob Kraft, co-chairs of the Expansion Committee, in those meetings on Monday. We met yesterday afternoon with representatives of the city of Carson. That was myself, Jerry Richardson, Bob Kraft and some of our staff to get a better understanding of the current Carson situation. After Monday’s meetings, we will be reporting back to the full committee and the committee will be making a definitive recommendation to the membership at our league meeting October 6. The committee will be meeting on October 5.

PT: No. The committee was well aware of the September 15 timeline and did not make any changes in that.

PT: No recommendation, no consensus and there were a lot of different points of view and the direction was for the co-chairs of the committee to meet with the groups on Monday and continue the discussion on the alternatives.

PT: We came into the meeting today to do what we did, bring everyone up to date as to where we feel the different candidates and venues are, and to hear the ownership point of view. As I said, we had a dozen members of the committee there with Wayne Huizenga and Bill Ford Jr. not able to attend. We had a lot of discussion with all the committee members participating and a lot of different points of view. As is frequently the case, it falls to the Commissioner and the committee co-chairs in this case to try to move the ball forward on some basis that we can present to the committee and get a committee recommendation at the October 6 league meeting.

PT: I think we can answer that better on Monday. We have had a number of submissions from a number of different locations in LA and we have a number of questions as to where they think they are, where they think they are not, what their economics are, where they are in terms of firm stadium construction prices and so on. Those are the kinds of things we will be discussing on Monday.

PT: I already said there were a lot of different opinions on the committee and different people think that different people are at different points. It’s not like announcing the Indianapolis 500. You can’t say one guy’s on the 202^nd lap and the other guy is on the 101^st lap. Different people have different perspectives as to where different groups are. That’s where we are. It’s a business judgment. It’s not counting the number of laps that people run or haven’t run.

PT: Nothing substantial on that. People always ask, ‘Why do we have to expand now? Why can’t I get Tim Couch rather than an expansion team getting Tim Couch?’ But I think it is more idle conversation than it is a real point of view. I think the assumption is we will be expanding to 32 teams.

PT: Let me stop you right there. The problem with the Coliseum was the cost. When we undertook to approach the Coliseum as we did in April, we recognized that there would be substantial additional costs in trying to get something done at the Coliseum. There would be incremental construction costs on the stadium because of the need to build a state-of-the-art stadium within the historic elements of the existing landmark Coliseum. We have had different estimates on what those additional costs would be; anywhere from $75-100 million to accommodate that construction requirement. Secondly, we knew there would be additional costs to get the infrastructure right in the Exposition Park area and that focused principally on access to the stadium and access from the stadium and the whole question of parking and access to the parking and so on. And obviously it has been discussed already that it would be around $200 million of incremental costs that you wouldn't have if you could do simplified parking just with opened non-structured lots. So I think the biggest issue of the Coliseum is the additional cost of trying to get it done there and we have not found a way of covering those costs that’s realistic.

PT: That’s something we’re going to be talking about on Monday.

PT: Like I say, people generally feel that we should stay with the timeline that we developed. There was some discussion by some owners of what is an obvious fact. After we adopted our resolution in March we made a decision we would give a six-month window to Los Angeles area candidates. Then we met and made a further decision on April 20 to narrow our focus to one place, the Coliseum. So Carson, for instance, didn’t get six months. They basically got two months from mid-March to mid-April and from mid-August to mid-September. That’s one of the points that Councilman Sweeny made yesterday when he was speaking on behalf of Carson. There is some feeling among Carson and Hollywood Park that they did not get six months. They got two months and they should be entitled to additional time. But that was their point of view and that was discussed.

PT: No. Your question sort of suggests that people are going to throw their hands up and say let’s let the chips fall where they may. We’re going to have a serious focused discussion on what everyone recognizes is a critically important decision. We’re looking at two very important markets and this is the last expansion team we’re going to have for quite awhile and everyone wants to take it as a very serious business decision.

PT: No. There was no sentiment in the meeting that would be taking that type of approach.

PT: We will be making a final decision hopefully on October 6 and it will be based on the state of some things as of September 15.

PT: It will be an expansion team. That’s what was discussed today. We did not discuss the Cleveland type of approach, which was either or.

PT: I guess what I would say is that we are meeting with them on Monday because we think there is substantial additional things to be discussed with them.

PT: No. It’s possible there could be a conference call. Today we talked about Monday’s meeting and the meeting on October 5. The strong feeling among virtually everybody in the room is that the committee should not only make a recommendation at the league meeting on October 6 but should urge the membership to make a decision if that is at all possible.

PT: The NFL often goes into overtime and I just said the sentiment was to get it resolved by October 6 and not to have an overtime game.

PT: We did discuss franchise fees today. We discussed the economic aspect of the proposals that are out there, revenue streams, that type of thing, but did not try to reach a consensus and did not reach a consensus.

PT: I couldn’t give a general classification. The general assumption is that it will be at or above the Cleveland price.

RK: I think the one thing that was clear was that there was no clear consensus from any of the groups. There were very divergent opinions and that’s the reason the meeting was set for Monday, to try to get into the details and bring resolution.

RK: I think it is the Commissioner’s responsibility that he gets the 24 votes so we can get the 32^nd franchise set and move on to other business. I think there was enough presented that the membership wants to be clear that every alternative has been investigated and we’re doing the right thing for the long-term future of the NFL.

RK: That’s the way everyone is thinking. People have spent a lot of time with this and would like to see it end and let us get on with our other business. That’s the program but the bottom line is we need to get 24 votes.

RK: The thing that surprised me today was there were so many divergent opinions and different opinions and that is part of the reason this meeting Monday will allow us to zero in and clarify a number of issues for the broad membership.

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