PT: We had a good start this morning. We approved the Ravens transaction. We had a discussion on the overview of the Collective Bargaining Agreement (salary cap, free agency). Then we discussed the stadium construction projects that are underway and the support that we are giving to new stadium construction. This afternoon we will get into the Internet and move on to other subjects tomorrow and Wednesday.

PT: I do not think the issue is one of image. I think the issue is a substantive issue of player conduct. We are here to talk about everything that goes into helping players maintain themselves professionally, to stay out of trouble, to have good support within the community where they are living, and to have good support from their teams, and teammates. In terms of getting the group of people you're talking about together, everyone representing those constituencies have already been involved in the discussion--players, coaches, Players Association, the League, owners, and the Commissioner's office, other than the agents. I am sure that we will be talking to some of the agents. I do not see a summit meeting, I see some discussions here this week possibly with some decisions and more decisions in May in terms of the kind of programs we are going to be pursuing.

PT: The agents have a lot of responsibilities as we all do. I think many of them will meet their responsibility well. We talked about that with the players association and the players and most of the emphasis with the players has been on the team, and on their teammates in terms of understanding who is having a problem with transition into the league or surviving with all the pressures that players have on them. Players tended to view agents as being involved in contract negotiations but not being involved on the day-to-day life issues where the players need support.

PT: We will discuss the scheduling format on realignment later this week. We put together some scheduling formulas, they all assume that there will be an eight-division league, with four teams in each division. A different approach is to the non-divisional games, obviously with four teams in the division you only have 6 divisional games on a home-and-away basis. That leaves you with 10 games to schedule outside the division. There are different ways of approaching that and we will be discussing that this week. We are going to look at all the different possibilities. The emphasis will be on scheduling formulas this week rather than which team will be in which division because we think that with some new scheduling formulas you can demonstrate that you will have a very rich schedule, and a lot of power within the divisions. Just as importantly, those 10 games outside of the divisions, some of which are games outside of the conference, will give fans a lot of interest, and it might influence some people's thinking on realignment, and the location of teams in the long run.

PT: We are focused on a network concept that I think everyone accepts. When new technologies are able to carry the games live with shoulder programming, highlight programming, and everything else that is on broadcast and cable television now, they will continue to be a league responsibility in the future, but that is some years off. Now we are looking at the interim period when the Internet is growing and NFL.com is growing, and team sites are growing. We are looking at a in trial league network concept. We will have a specific discussion this afternoon as to what element will be on NFL.com, what element we would be prepared to partner with portals outside the NFL, then what the teams will be doing on their Web-Sites this year. A lot of emphasis will be on multimedia and the use of video and connecting the sites together in a way that is both experimental and innovative.

PT: I do not know whether they have any salary cap issues. I do not know if there is an issue of relief or not. It depends on a lot of things that I have discussed briefly with Carmen Policy and the Management Council, but I can't speculate as to how it might be addressed.

PT: I was hoping to have something before we came here. I think I will have a decision in the next week or two. I already reinstated him, so it is just a question of the two-game loss of salary.

PT: I think your point is a valid one, that there is more than one factor. As I said at the Super Bowl the overwhelming number of players are good citizens. They contribute in their communities and they do not have problems and so on. The issue that we are addressing, as are other leagues, are societal standards, and societal expectations, for professional athletes, which comes in part from the raised visibility of the athlete in society through the media. It's also a result of general concern in society about the level of violence in our society. Whether it is person-to-person violence, domestic violence, a six-year-old in a classroom against another six-year-old in a classroom, or worker-against-worker, there have been incidents in society that have raised the issue. So when athletes are involved in the same, or similar types, of incidents, they are being scrutinized and properly so, although in ways, as you suggest that may not have been the case 10 or 20 years ago. I do think that it is a number of factors that brought the issue to the floor.

PT: That is one of the things we are reviewing. Initially the policy focused on person-to-person criminal conduct where violence is involved. Obviously we had some charges filed that go beyond those types of incidents; breaking and entering does not normally involve person-to-person conduct. Some other issues -- being involved in drug trafficking, for example -- do not necessarily involve person-to-person violence. We are looking at all the kind of incidents we have had, whether they are only allegations, convictions or pleas, and trying to reassess our entire policy, including our level of discipline. That includes the level of discipline in the violation of existing policies that just involve the game, such as the issue of over-the-counter supplements. We have been discussing those with the Players Association. So I would say what we are looking at is a complete review of our policies that we do every year. This year we are doing it with greater levels of participation. But it includes discipline in all areas whether it is substance abuse, steroid abuse, over-the-counter supplements, or professional standards of conduct off the field.

P: Substance abuse is covered by the Collective Bargaining Agreement. So any changes would have to be negotiated with the Players Association. Harold Henderson and his people have had the annual postseason review of those subjects with the Players Association and that would have to be negotiated. Some of these other areas, I created the policy and I have the authority under the provisions dealing with conduct detrimental to the League to implement the policy and set the standards for discipline.

PT: I do not see negotiations at this point, I see discussions. We are always trying to make sure that the counseling and the treatment and all aspects of administering the program are up to date and sensible. So we have those discussions but I don't think they are negotiations.

PT: No. I think that some clubs are doing in-depth screening of draft-eligible players that most people feel are innovative, good programs. There are tests out there that employers generally use that some teams suggest that we should use on a leaguewide basis to take advantage of the best testing technology and interviewing techniques available to identify employees or potential employees in any work pool that might need support or counseling. I do not think it raises legal issues. I think it is an important initiative and could pay some dividends in terms of helping players.

PT: I would be speculating if I started saying what could be or what might be. We are not that far along in the progress.

PT: When we meet on Wednesday with principle owners and head coaches only we will have an opportunity to make some decisions. This year we are going to have a panel discussion in which Brian Billick, Tony Dungy, and Mike Holmgren will be an active part. They will play the role of discussion leaders and try to put out some of their best practices. There might be some consensus that grows out of that before we leave here this week. If there is an opportunity for it, I think it would grow out of that meeting on Wednesday morning.

PT: We are in the process of looking into some reorganization to take advantage of the opportunity on the Internet. We are restructuring some of our senior management group and we're looking at ways of communicating information better. In some cases it may mean that we will have more meetings. One of the things that we are looking at is a quarterly club presidents meeting that would be analogous to what other companies might do in other industries, and would be chaired by a senior league executive other than the commissioner so that you have a flow of information to the club president’s on a quarterly basis and from there to ownership. That might help ownership in understanding what we might be bringing up in League meetings and what League initiatives are critical. A lot of things are being considered.

PT: Art made it clear this morning that in some ways it is the end of the beginning in Baltimore rather than the beginning of the end. He has a very strong partner in Steve Bisciotti. Their arrangement is clearly a partnership arrangement going forward for 4-to-6 seasons. Steve Bisciotti has made that clear to me and I think they feel throughout the organization, not only the Modell family but Brian Billick, that they have a very good nucleus for an excellent football team. They are not viewing it as the end of anything. They are viewing it as the end of the beginning in Baltimore and maybe moving on and having some real successful seasons on the field.

PT: We have not had a stadium update in terms of opening dates. I talked to Mike Brown about it when we met at the Combine but I haven’t talked about it with him since.

PT: I think that most owners feel, as the medium develops, if you step back and compare the potential for revenue in the short term right now with our current media revenue it is not a lot. Long term is obviously different and most owners feel that there should be a very broad sharing on a equal basis within this network concept that we are talking about. There would be some areas where clubs might get a differential. It depends on how we deal with e-commerce, where there would probably be a League site (shop), which we currently have with Footlocker and Champ’s, and then it could be club sites/pages within the League site. There could be some differential revenue rather than equal sharing.

P: We have television contracts through the 2005 season and our games are committed to those networks through that season subject to the option that we have to possibly to revisit TV after the 2002 season. I think they view the Internet and the .com universe as an opportunity. They are major media companies. Fox is moving aggressively in that area and CBS is and ABC & ESPN are through Disney. All the major media companies are going to be viewing these as additional areas of distribution and additional opportunities and not as threats.

PT: That’s because it’s in an early stage. Most people think that it is going to evolve in a variety of ways, including advertising and other sources of revenue.

PT: No. What I was referring to there is the number of initiatives that a number of clubs have taken beginning with the pre-season and the off-season where they have made their training camps more fan-friendly. A lot of clubs, especially in the new stadiums, have made the game-day experience a longer experience, an-all day experience. For example in Tampa what they are doing with the pirate ship in the stadium and the way fans flock there pre-game and post-game is a great thing. There are a whole range of things a smart club can do with fan service, connecting with the players, that can be very positive. That would be the main area where I think we could focus some energy.

PT: Our hope and expectation is that the proposal by the Governor’s task force will be supported. I am aware that some legislative action has been taken that has changed that proposal. I spoke with the task force early on about playing a Super Bowl in the new stadium if the project goes forward. At this point it is an issue for the Cardinals and the people in Arizona, based on the proposal by the Governor’s task force, and whatever other steps have to be taken in the legislature.

PT: I am not aware of any of negotiations with the NFLCA. In fact I was not aware that we had a NFLCA until now but I think I know now what the initials refer to. We have been trying to understand their point of view with respect to medical issues, retirement issues, and some of the turnover issues. I think we do understand them. We have had a task force of owners working on it for the past year including Jerry Richardson and John Mara and other owners. A year ago we adopted some new health and Medicare-related type of policies and we are going to continue to address those issues and have a meeting of some of those owners with Larry Kennan. This is an area which is principally a club’s responsibility. The clubs hire the coaches and pay the coaches and the ownership feels very strongly that it should continue to be that way. In most organizations the ownership and the head coach are the focal point for this type of decision and I think it will continue to stay that way.

PT: With 32 teams, including the team in Houston, we will cover 45 percent of the nation's population will be with the home territories of our teams; 55% will not be. If you substituted Los Angeles for one of the other cities that number does not change significantly. In terms of national coverage in a 32-team league, no market, even a market the size of LA, produces a big swing. On the other hand, we made it clear a year ago that we would like to have a team back in LA but we're not going to do it in a way that doesn’t work. We don’t have any current plans to address the issue other than to provide good television around the country, including in Los Angeles.

PT: Fans surveys on naming rights show that as long as the stadium is done tastefully and named tastefully, fans don’t see naming rights as a big issue. People sometimes overlook the fact that Wrigley Field, which has always been viewed as one of the great parks in professional sports in America, was named for someone who owned the chewing gum company. It’s not exactly a new phenomenon. There is enough creativity in naming rights so that the tradition of Curly Lambeau could be maintained. It is not a decision for me to make. It is a decision for the people in Green Bay, Wisconsin to make in terms of how they want to get revenue from the private sector and if they did it in a tasteful way I think the fans accept that and understand why it is being done. It doesn’t diminish the tradition in any way.