Good afternoon. As you know, we passed instant replay today by a pretty good margin. The other major issue today was the adoption of an exclusive NFL Internet network concept. This involves the league network and strong team Websites at the club level. Other than that, most of the day was spent discussing future scheduling concepts that would apply after we realign into an 8-division, 4-team format.

At this point the meetings are over. It has been a very, very productive four days.

Q: What is the status of the new schedule formula?

PT: We didn’t decide anything. We put up a formula that would have a considerably larger number of common opponents rather than the weighted formula that we have now. It is just one concept. A lot depends on how we proceed with the playoff games and the number of playoff games. We haven’t made a decision on that yet. At the next owners meetings in May we are going to be talking about playoff concepts related to the scheduling concepts.

Q: Will there be any changes as to who qualifies for the playoffs?

PT: That’s the question, whether we have the same number of playoff teams or if we would have an increased number of playoff teams with an 8-division structure.

Q: Is there an estimate of how many more playoff teams would compete each year?

PT: I don’t think anyone would be talking about more than two. I would be surprised if they were talking about more than two. There would probably be some sentiment to stay where we are. Since we expanded to the current number of playoff teams in 1990 in anticipation of league expansion, I don’t think we would be talking any more than 14 playoff teams.

Q: What is the nature of today’s announcement about player celebrations on the field?

PT: A resolution was adopted today. The Competition Committee was unanimous, the coaches were unanimous, the Players Association felt very strongly that artificial celebrations on the field, structured acts that are coordinated in advance, have no place in the game.

Q: What kind of progress has been made on the issue of player violence off the field?

PT: On the player violence off the field, we are going to continue to have internal discussions with our staff, keep talking with the Players Association and we will address it again at the May meeting.

Q: Would you say that the presentations that were made were helpful and made a lasting impression on the owners?

PT: I think they did. Our staff with Harold Henderson and Lem Burnham was excellent. The six coaches really did a good job of leading the discussion. Other coaches had a number of ideas that focused on goals and issues. There was a very positive feeling about the programs that we already have in place. The teams across the board are focused on this issue. The challenge is to not get frustrated, to stay at it and keep addressing it each year as we go along.

Q: Would you describe the new agreement between the NFL clubs regarding the Internet and revenue sharing? What kind of advancements can we expect?

PT: It’s a much stronger understanding among and between the teams. It looks ahead to much more vibrant sites with multimedia, more footage and bandwidth expansion, and other features such as radio. It looks ahead to some relationships where you can take a game like "Madden 2000" from Playstation and PC platforms onto the Internet. It involves a whole range of new initiatives that technology is making available and which the marketplace shows have the interest of sports fans. This is a medium that began somewhat static, almost as a publishing medium. It is moving very quickly into a multimedia format. The biggest thing is that we are going to do all of these things on a coordinated basis with the league and all the teams working together.

Q: What about revenue?

PT: It will be shared equally. The Internet at this stage is not a big revenue generator. It is an exciting medium in which there is a lot of experimentation, innovation and creativity. That is what we are looking forward to, especially this year.

Q: Was there any discussion about the 49ers salary cap case?

PT: We had a brief report yesterday from outside counsel. It is currently in front of the Special Master. Everyone expects to have the evidence completed and the matter submitted for decision fairly soon.

Q: Why won’t there be full-length NFL games available on other sites? ESPN Classic carries broadcasts of old MLB games. It gives your sport more exposure to do so. Why limit game footage to nfl.com?

PT: It’s our games. We want this to be a very attractive site. We don’t intend to dilute what we have. As we go forward, we are going to make sure that a full-service Internet site serves NFL fans. That includes not only archived games, but current games as well. We have no reason to believe that ESPN can do it any better than we can. NFL Films has won more Emmys in sports production than any company in history. We expect them to perform just as well on the Internet as they have performed in film and video. What is the reason to defer to somebody else? There is none when you already have the best in-house.

Q: Any comments on the XFL?

PT: I’ve been so busy here thinking about our own agenda that I haven’t had the chance to think about it. I guess the marketplace will let us know if it succeeds. I don’t have a reaction that you could regard as informed.

Q: Please explain the revision to the tampering rules that affect coaches?

PT: The clubs approved the recommendation of the Competition Committee to have a two-tiered system of head coaches and assistant coaches. The Competition Committee recommended unanimously that the current system of three tiers wasn’t working and was creating a lot of problems for head coaches trying to keep their staffs together. It created inequities among coaches that were not intended or anticipated when the coaches and clubs signed the contracts. The Competition Committee had reviewed that going all the way back to February. They said that a contract should be a contract except for when a coach or assistant coach has an opportunity to move up to head coach. Then the club is obligated to letting that coach have discussions, even if he is under a contract. A team can always give permission, but they’re not obligated to invalidate their own contract.

Q: (On the future of the Internet)

PT: We are in competition with a lot of sports programming today in all mediums. I don’t see in the long run how it will be much different. In the short run, this is a medium that is changing and developing all the time and there would be some explosion of companies and some contraction of companies. Our content, our games, our product is so strong that we’ll have a very powerful network. If we deal with the network as a league like we have done in the past on television, it will be very successful for our fans and it will give us the ability to use our games and our sport most effectively with our fans.

Q: Will there be any changes in any of your media policies because of the Internet?

PT: Are we going to reassess some of our intellectual property practices that affect our intellectual property rights? Yes, we have already done that. The new media, the Internet, transforms the nature of the delivery of content. If you just compare radio as a broadcast medium with radio on the Internet, radio as a broadcast medium is limited in place and time. A broadcast signal is within a single market and its content is heard only once. On the Internet, space or place once limited becomes unlimited. What was once limited in time can be archived and listened to over and over again. A few weeks ago I was listening to Kurt Warner playing in the World League in 1998 on my home computer! That is a radically new phenomenon.

So, yes we are going to change our intellectual property practices to protect the value of what we have in light of the new media. We’ll also distribute it broadly to ensure that our fans get it in a way that is responsive to their interests.

Q: Do you think the current instant replay system will be voted in again on a permanent basis next year?

PT: Next year is not important right now. We have it for this season. I think we made the right decision for right now. If it continues to work, that’s great. I am focused on this season.

Next Friday I’ll be going to Europe to kick off NFL Europe 2000. In September we have our own season to play before we get to 2001.

Q: Is there any interest on the part of the NFL to impart some of its wisdom to help players at the NCAA level with off-the-field difficulties before they get to the professional level?

PT: I don’t like to tell other people how to run their businesses or their universities. Our approach would be to share with the colleges and universities some of the things we are doing that we think are having a good effect. Many of our players are only a year or two or three out of the universities. In some cases there are players playing in the NFL that are younger than some players in college.

We face many issues in common in terms of pressures on the players and who they are. We should have some discussions with the universities. But I think it is up to them to set their own policies.

Q: Any discussions about moving the Combine back closer to the date of the Draft?

PT: We did move the Combine back this year closer to the Draft. We have negotiated with the Players Association on a set of terms for a revision of the calendar. That should move it even closer to the Draft but there are limits because of the need not just to gather the information, but to evaluate it. You can’t move the Combine back as far as some people had anticipated.

Q: What was the impetus for making planned celebrations illegal?

PT: Coaches said across the board that the players on their teams regarded it as provocative. Players talked about the fact that when St. Louis players would be doing that, they thought about retaliating. There was a question of whether or not it should be regarded as taunting. Coaches felt it was very negative to have to spend time before a game with your players trying to cool them down and make sure they don’t react to what they see as taunting. Coaches felt there was no place for that in the game and there was no reason to have to deal with an issue like that in the locker room.

Q: Do you support having more teams make the playoffs?

PT: I couldn’t say that I do now without some study. I have to look at the kind of analysis that we did in 1990. I would be a little skeptical that we could expand the playoffs. I know we looked at a lot of data back then when we were at 28 teams. We expanded the playoffs at that time and went to the bye week scheduling format. Based upon what I recall from the records at that time, I would start with some skepticism about adding teams to the playoffs.

Q: Is there anyone that is pushing the idea of playoff expansion?

PT: No. No one is pushing it. The Competition Committee brought it up. When they were asked to evaluate some of these scheduling formulas they quickly came to the conclusion that the attractiveness of some of the formulas depends upon your assumptions about how many teams will be in the playoffs. You have to work back from there.

Q: How important was the revenue sharing Internet decision in regards to future revenue?

PT: I don’ t know about potential future revenue. The focus now was on the development of the Internet and everyone working together. Many clubs feel that it was as important as the agreement back in 1961 to pool the television rights through the league and sell them as a league package. However, there is a big difference. That was a decision that was a permanent decision and this is a decision for two years. Everyone recognizes that this is a period of great innovation. There should be many innovations and creativity in cyberspace. But this agreement is over in two years and will be carefully evaluated in that two-year period.

Q: (On NFL Office re-organization)

PT: That is my decision. It wasn’t discussed with the membership. I had some discussions with some committees here this week about some of my thoughts as to how we can better organize and integrate our operations and really integrate them to take account of these immediate challenges. That is the reason for doing some organizational restructuring. It’s the explosion and growth of the business and the technology revolution that is the primary driver for change in the organizational structure.

Q: Will Neil Austrian be replaced as President?

PT: Not as such, no. I don’t anticipate recreating that position. He will be replaced by other executives in other positions who will pick up his responsibilities, but not in the same format.

I think it is better to work with a flatter organization than it is to work with a hierarchical organization.