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8/15/01
Commissioner Tagliabue –
Interview with Buddy Diliberto -
WWL Radio (New Orleans)
BD:
A lot has changed since Super Bowl week when you spoke
about the future of the Saints in New Orleans and in the interim a
short-term agreement has been made between the State and the Saints and
hopefully that will be a bridge to a long-term solution to keep the Saints
in New Orleans.
Commissioner Tagliabue:
That is certainly the goal,
and I think the interim agreement is a good step in the right direction.
BD: Question about the aggressive regional-marketing campaign
of the Saints.
Commissioner Tagliabue:
They have, and I think that
is what they need to do and they have fans in that area and they are
reaching out to serve those fans. They have to get the fans in the dome for
this up-coming season and see the Saints continue the kind of performance
they had last year.
BD:
Question on the demographics of New Orleans and regional
marketing.
Commissioner Tagliabue:
Certainly they are one
of the top one or two teams that need to do that regional marketing because,
like you say, it’s not a deep population. We’ve seen it work in other
places like Buffalo and Kansas City and we and the fans have to make it work
in the Gulf South region.
BD:
A question about the league’s economic structure and a
large part of that being facility driven.
Commissioner Tagliabue:
It is facility driven
and I think there is a big opportunity now for the fans with a good team to
buy the season tickets to support the Saints. The business community too
has a great opportunity with the team and the Super Bowl coming, like you
say, to get that revenue to help keep the team as strong as it is.
BD:
A question about season-ticket sales and the new stadium
deal.
Commissioner Tagliabue:
Maybe they should set
themselves a goal of beating that Buffalo Bills record – the Bills set
attendance records four years in a row. Maybe the Saints goal, with coach
Haslett, should be to break all those Bills records from the early
nineties. It would be a heck of a thing.
BD:
Any progress in settling the officials dispute?
Commissioner Tagliabue:
We are trying to. We
will be making another offer to them probably either later today or
tomorrow. That’s what we committed to do yesterday with the officials. We
are trying to get this resolved before we kick off the regular season in
early September.
BD:
How long before you start contacting replacements?
Commissioner Tagliabue:
We expect to be
contacting replacements this week. We have to do the planning and we can’t
run any risk that games would be disrupted either during the latter part of
the preseason or regular season. We don’t want that from a fan standpoint.
We can’t tolerate that. We are trying to negotiate a new deal, but we will
be lining up possible replacements beginning this week.
BD:
A question about financial support from the business
community for the Saints.
Commissioner Tagliabue:
You heard me say that
before. The business community is key because they get real good value. We
have seen how it works in so many other cities around the country. As the
team is reaching out, if the business community in that region could step up
and support the team, it will be good for those businesses that support the
Saints and it will secure the long-term future and stability of the
franchise.
BD:
How do you like New Orleans as a Super Bowl city?
Commissioner Tagliabue:
We like it and we remember some of the outstanding games that
have been down there and the fans around the country seem to love it so we
hope we can continue that tradition and we are looking forward to late
January next year. Who knows, maybe we’ll have the Saints for the first
time hosting the Super Bowl game as one of the participating teams.
BD:
A question about salary cap and salaries rising.
Commissioner Tagliabue:
There is a collision. Some
of these contracts get pushed to an unrealistic point and so what you see is
agreements between players and their teams that make for two or three years
but not four, five or six. We’ve had some situations, such as Levon
Kirkland being released by the Steelers, where I know the player was
disgruntled, but so was the team because the contract number is too high.
We’ve got a solid situation in the league right now, but you can’t be
un-realistic about the future in terms of where the salaries are going to
go.
BD:
A question about Korey Stringer and if there is anything
else being done to prevent that from happening again.
Commissioner Tagliabue:
What we are doing is
re-examining everything that we do. We have talked to the Players
Association and one area that the players throughout the league feel that
things are done in a real sound way is in that area of heat-related
illness. We are going to do some monitoring and self-evaluation, and if we
can do anything better we will. Losing a player is a tragic thing and of
course this young man, like so many of our NFL players, was a worker in the
community. He gave of himself to young people, youth football, and that is
another big area of the NFL. I had the privilege just last week at the Hall
of Fame of visiting with Aaron Brooks’ high school coach, Tommy Reamon.
Youth football and having our players lead in that area, which is what Korey
Stringer did, is one of the big goals of the NFL.
BD:
A question
about realignment.
Commissioner Tagliabue:
I think it will be
exciting. The Saints of course now have Tampa Bay in their division, which
is new, and that will be a tough opponent, but it will be a good opponent
right down there in the Gulf area. Then Carolina and Atlanta will still be
there so you’ll have to deal with Michael Vick, who is like your quarterback
Aaron Brooks. Michael is one of the exciting young players in the country.
The divisional rivalries will be terrific and the Saints are well situated
with the likes of La’Roi Glover and Willie Roaf and so much talent to really
compete in that new division and with our new scheduling formula.
BD:
What do NFL officials make and what are they asking for?
Commissioner Tagliabue:
They make a range. It
starts somewhere in the high twenties, low thirties and currently goes go up
to about seventy thousand dollars. In their proposals they are looking for
a four or five-time increase, taking them up into the two hundred and eighty
thousand dollar category for veteran officials. We are going to make them a
good offer, but it’s unrealistic to think that people are going to get four
or five time increases when inflation is flat.
BD:
That’s a
pretty big increase.
Commissioner Tagliabue:
They do a good job and we
need to recognize that. It’s a very tough job. Replay has helped correct
those errors where the coach throws the flag and brings replay in. We also
need to be realistic and the owners need to recognize, as they do recognize,
that things have to be done with common sense and you can’t expect increases
like that because, like my father used to say, money doesn’t grow on trees.
BD:
Is it safe to say that as long as the Saints stay in New
Orleans it will always be a Super Bowl location?
Commissioner Tagliabue:
You can assume that. We
started with that Super Bowl in the old Tulane Stadium when the Saints were
just a young franchise. Tom Benson has done a terrific job of putting New
Orleans forth as a Super Bowl location when he makes those presentations
with his little dance and his umbrella at our league meetings. More than
that, he comes in there and really argues for New Orleans and for the people
to come there and for the league to commit to the games. So, as long as you
have that team there I think the owner will be doing that.
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