Q: Is being Commissioner of the NFL similar to being Chairman of a Board with very powerful members and directors; do you see analogies with those positions?

PT: Yes I do. There are some similarities in leadership and how a good strong board member can be a creative, innovative visionary. You can look for the same characteristics in strong owners in a sports league that can be innovative, creative visionaries. All of those characteristics are common to both a league’s executive committee and a corporate board. The major difference is that the board members in a sports league are the owners, or the partners, or the shareholders in the business, whereas typically board members may own some stock but they are not the sole owners of the enterprise. That is part and parcel of what is unique about a sports league, which is the partnership aspects and the joint-venture ownership aspects of the league. In some ways a sports league is also different, at least our league, because we have a ¾ voting standard for making decisions. Sometimes you feel more like the majority leader of the senate building a consensus, rather than a CEO of a corporation running a board. It’s the ownership and the partnership aspects that differentiate members of the league’s executive committee from corporate board members.

Q: Are those actual characteristics something you take into account when you consider various ownership groups that might be seeking to take over a franchise? You actually look at not just the financial strength of the group but also the character of the potential owners?

PT: Yes. We look for vision. We look for people who are innovative and focused on customer service. It’s certainly something that is critically important in all aspects of our economy today. You look for people who recognize that the league is a unique partnership and are going to work for the best interests of the partnership while they are also working to win on the field and to make their team the strongest sports franchise in their community. They also need to focus on the national challenges that a league faces and the fact those owners need to be leaders for the entire partnership, not just for one of the partners.

Q: How do you do that? There has been a lot of talk and activity recently about some owners, particularly new owners, who come in and may be highly leveraged in order to obtain franchises, who are striking their own side deals. The challenges to the league’s central partnership agreement seem to be getting stronger as time goes by. Do you see it that way, or do you think they are creative owners finding new ways to bring in revenue?

PT: I don’t think it’s so much creative owners. The biggest change is twofold. One would be free agency being an element in the pursuit of players, the ability to pursue players as free agents and to acquire talent from other teams, not just from the college draft. That certainly changes the way owners and teams relate to each other. Free agency is also a big factor in how fans relate to teams and players.

The second thing is the effort we have sustained to build new stadiums throughout the ‘90s. Increasingly, stadiums are private/public partnerships where there is a significant component of team investment or league investment in the financing and construction of stadiums. You have to strike a new balance between national opportunities with sponsors and business partners and local opportunities where the sponsorship at the team level can help you build a new stadium, which strengthens the sport not just in that market but for all the teams in the league. The better we provide entertainment at the team level, the stronger we are as a league nationally.

There is also an economic stake there for the visiting teams. They receive 34% of the gate from the improved stadiums and the improved customer service in those new stadiums.

Q: Are you concerned that there are too many teams that are over- leveraged in their pursuit of these stadiums? The recent Forbes story indicated a few teams are carrying huge levels of debt. Is there anything the league does, or wants to do to enforce the balance that you see is reasonable, or is it a matter of the new owners having a necessity to find new revenues to start paying off their debt burden?

PT: I disagree very strongly. The notion that we have teams that are over- leveraged, or over-extended is nonsense. We have some very unique ownership policies and financing standards. They reflect not just good business practice, but a very solid banking practice. We have required owners to give us control in addition to the control they have given to banks, either when acquiring a team or building a stadium. The policies we have are very strong, perhaps unique in sports. They go back to the early ‘80s when there were teams in other sports that were highly leveraged and basically sold for an assumption of the debt. That has never been the case in the NFL and will never be the case in the NFL.

Q: In terms of that balance you were talking about in terms of national and local interests and the way the owners relate to each other, how does that relate to some of the franchise hopping that has gone around in the ‘90s? Is it that teams have to move to better places for themselves for the league to prosper, or is that something you would like to see curtailed? What does that say about where teams are headed in this league?

PT: It says a good facility is critical to your ability to compete in a local market. Some of the moves in the ‘80s as well as the ‘90s, such as the Colts in Baltimore in 1984 and the Art Modell issue in Cleveland arose from baseball getting new stadiums. Dual-purpose stadiums were no longer a paradigm because baseball was using its own stadiums and football was left in old stadiums that were unattractive from a customer standpoint compared to the new baseball stadiums. It says a lot about the need in the entertainment business to have a good theater if you will. In our case the theater is the stadium. In basketball’s case the theater is the arena. The theater for motion pictures is the advanced multiplex with perhaps 30 screens in one complex and 200 seats in each theater, 6,000 seats in one complex. That type of facility is critical to competing in the entertainment business. In the second half of the ‘90s we have addressed that very aggressively at the team level. At the league level, the league is supporting construction of new stadiums and we have put an end to franchise relocation and meet the team needs in their existing market, which is very important.

Q: The people who work for the teams, the players, are at the right-hand end of the bell curve in terms of their talents and what they do. What challenges or situations does that present? Does the Players Association have extra leverage compared to what other unions have in other businesses because NFL players are the best people in the world at what they do?

PT: Yes. They have a lot of leverage. The real challenge to management and to the union is to strike a balance in two areas.

One is between the player’s and team’s interest on the one hand and the fan’s interest on the other hand in terms of player stability and continuity. Secondly is to strike a balance between the system that compensates players on the basis of their status as a star or veteran versus performance.

We feel very strongly on both points. Our Collective Bargaining Agreement strikes a good balance on both points. We have continuity with star players; we have a system where the star players get rewarded very handsomely. There are also incentives for them to stay where they are. The salary cap serves that purpose. The franchise player concept serves that purpose. We can say to our fans, not just in theory but in fact, that we have continuity of the superstars. We have John Elway in Denver, Mark Brunell in Jacksonville, Drew Bledsoe in New England, Michael Strahan with the New York Giants. We have a system that focuses on what the fan wants out of his team, which is not only a winning team but players that a fan can identify with over time.

Q: Do you think the lessons of that system are applicable in other businesses, or do you think the fact that there are clearly identifiable stars in football makes this something that works for your league, but might not work for other kinds of businesses?

PT: We are unique in the sense that in sports we are selling a combination of rigorous, competitive balance on the field. You are selling that on one hand, but you are also selling the superhuman. You are selling the athlete who can perform at levels that most fans regard as superhuman. That’s why we identify with stars like Jerry Rice and others. To that extent, we are unique.

We are the same as any other business in terms of understanding what it is that brings customers to your entertainment. If you lose sight of that, you are going to lose customers fast.

Q: What can you tell us about the NFL’s attempts to go global, both in terms of merchandising and also in franchises? Where do you see the league standing as a worldwide enterprise and what might people learn from what the league has done in becoming a global sport?

PT: The first thing is what you alluded to. The NFL and pro sports in general in the last half-century have been transformed from box office businesses that were essentially local, to national and international businesses. That has been driven by the telecommunications revolution. Within the United States, beginning in the late ‘50s and running right up to the present, you had an explosion in broadcast television, cable television and satellite television. You now have massive fan interest in teams around the country, not just in the community where the team operates. Whether it’s the Denver Broncos or the Green Bay Packers or whether it’s a team in a large market or small market, the lion’s share of the fans are around the nation, not in a local market. That is a product of the telecommunications explosion.

The international evolution is being driven by the same changes in technology, especially satellite television and the Internet, which is obviously a global medium. The world is getting smaller and people throughout the world have access to sports and telecommunications. That is essentially what drives us to Japan or enables us to have a league in Europe. We can get close to the fans by operating a league in Europe, but they can also see NFL games themselves in the fall on television and they can get close to the game and athletes through NFL Europe in the spring. That is the lesson, what telecommunications can do for an entertainment business.

The second point that is critical is that while we are selling NFL football as a slice of America, as America’s sports passion, you need to be very sensitive to adapt to local culture and interests and to the level of local understanding. You have to run clinics. You have to present the game in the stadium. Both the length of the game and pace of the game, and character of the game make you have to do some adapting so that it is responsive to local interests and local perspectives on what sports should be.

Q: Can you give me an example of how the NFL Europe league might do that? As an American fan, if I was there, what might I see that was different?

PT: It starts with local players and local talent. It goes to the pace of the game in Europe. Soccer and basketball are continuous-motion type of games. Our game moves more quickly, the way we time it, the way we play it in Europe. That is just one example. We try to have a pace of the game which is not only responsive to local interests but also a length of game which is responsive to local interests. That begins with the league taking into account whether you are playing in the afternoon or at night, are people leaving stadiums at a time when they still have their transportation services available, things like that.

When we played an American Bowl game in Ireland, we didn’t take adequate account of the fact that a lot of people come into Dublin from surrounding environs, and they had to travel by rail. You need to be sensitive on a lot of different levels.

Q: Tell me about some of your efforts with the United Way over recent years. It seems in the wake of some of the troubles the United Way has had, its relationship with the NFL has only gotten more prominent. Tell me what you have done and what the organization has done to turn itself around in the last few years.

PT: The NFL’s commitment to the United Way is stronger than ever. That is because the United Way has been reinventing itself the way many not-for-profits and many organizations have been doing. In the last five years the United Way has gotten much stronger because it is operating with a strategic vision. We had some really good leadership from some corporate CEOs. Keith Bailey of the Williams Company, Oz Nelson from UPS, Mike Cook from Deloitte & Touche and others, as well as labor union leaders, which are part of the United Way partnership.

The strategic plan really takes a look at what is going on in the human services area. What is going on with charitable giving in America and how can the United Ways in their communities serve as a centerpiece for prioritizing the delivery of human services in a very effective and cost-effective way. That is the biggest thing. Develop a strategic vision and then to execute a plan against that vision.

Q: How would you characterize the vision being different from what it was before? Is the United Way trying to be more of a local focal point for human service delivery?

PT: Yes. It is trying to be more of a community builder, a community convener and a community prioritizer, not simply a funds collection and distribution mechanism. That is sort of a template that came out of the strategic plan and it very much filters down to the local United Ways to execute on that basis. You have a lot of variety from region to region.

Our board recently met in Columbus, Ohio. We heard from corporate, labor and political leaders there, including the mayor. The Columbus United Way works to prioritize to build neighborhoods and to identify those issues which are most acute in the community, whether it is housing or race relations and to deliver services to those half dozen or so priority issues rather than just collect money and distribute it on some traditional or historic formula.

Q: Are there any tangible signs you can point to either in terms of projects completed or goals met in terms of the United Way reinventing or reorganizing itself?

PT: I would say two things. First, at the local level there are some very strong double-digit growth rates in terms of giving to the United Way. In communities such as Columbus, Ohio; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Charlotte, North Carolina and many others, the United Way is clearly focused. At a time where there was very little inflation in our economy there were very real, large annual gains in giving.

Secondly at the national level, NationsBank and other major companies and foundations, including the Gates Foundation, have made major grants to the United Way of America. These grants recognize that it has a strategic vision and that it is focused on delivering services in communities in a way that is tailored to community needs.

At both levels there has been a vote of confidence by givers, both the business community and the foundation community, in the United Way.

Q: Did you take on any formal role that was any different in the last couple of years that was any different while the United Way made these changes?

PT: Yes. For a good part 1998 and 1999 I was the Chairman of the Board. Prior to that I had been on the Board from 1992.

Q: Are you still serving in that capacity?

PT: My term as board chair ended on September 1. I am still on the board and very active with the nominating committee, whose principal mission is to maintain and strengthen the quality of leadership and operations of the United Way.

Q: When you became Chairman did you have access to any data or any news or any information that surprised you? What did you discover upon taking that position and what did you bring in terms of a change of direction to the organization?

PT: The strategic vision and plan were in place. In the last 18 months we focused very strongly on standards of excellence for all United Ways. The national movement adopted operating standards of excellence on a national basis.

The second thing is to focus hard on the optimal relationship between the local United Ways, metro-wide United Ways, regional groupings of United Ways and the national United Way. That dialogue is still very much under way. The focus is to make it clear to everybody in the movement that it is not a zero sum game. It is a win-win situation when the United Way functions properly. It is not a local against national dilemma.

Q: How did the NFL’s relationship with the United Way begin? The commercial spots have become so famous and are so moving. Did the League always consider the United Way the organization that it wanted to be closely identified with or did that grow and evolve out of people’s reactions to the early relationship?

PT: My predecessor Pete Rozelle established the relationship back in the early ‘70s. We have now been in our partnership for more than 25 years. Pete’s belief was that it was an opportunity for the League to take advantage of national television-- to associate its reputation for quality with the United Way’s reputation for quality and at the same time to respect the structure of the United Way by connecting with people, in their communities through the teams. It was the similarity between the Leagues national structure with strong team presence in the community and the United Way’s national structure with strong local United Way presence in the community which made it an obvious match up.

The other thing was that the players could take off their helmets when they are involved with the United Way. So many of the players and their families do take off their helmets and work in the community. Pete Rozelle felt it was a good opportunity to recognize and encourage those players to do that. He wanted to make players leaders on a broader level in community activities. That has been one of the real positive aspects of this over the years, not just players but coaches and owners as well.

Q: Is there a particular decision that you can look to as being the most difficult over your 10 years as Commissioner?

PT: One would certainly be to agree to the Collective Bargaining Agreement that we accepted back in 1992. It was such a radical restructuring of player and team economics that there was a leap of faith there on both sides and not only in terms of economics but in terms of quality of the game. So far I think it has worked out reasonably well. Neither side is happy with all aspects of the deal, but that is often true of collective bargaining agreements. Transforming the player relationship to his team and to the fan in terms of free agency was a major decision with a lot of uncertainty.

The other difficult issues have to do with the movement of teams, working through the political process to create a public/private partnership to keep teams where they are and respect the loyalty and the support of the fans in the community. Sometimes for reasons that you cannot fully understand on a rational level, dialogue breaks down between the team and the political leadership and you have teams move such as the move of the Oilers out of Houston. With the benefit of hindsight this is hard to understand.

Q: Is there a rule of thumb, or a formula, or a percentage that you use in trying to ascertain how much financing of a new stadium should be financed by the public and how much should be financed by the League?

PT: No. We recognize that in different parts of the country there are different approaches to the financing of public facilities. Currently, of the 15-20 new stadiums that have already been built or are committed to being built, we have financing plans at every point of the spectrum.

We have teams such as Carolina and the Washington Redskins where the lion’s share of the cost of building the stadium was from the private sector, either through the business community and the fan base in the case of Carolina or through the owner and the League in the case of the Redskins. At the other end of the spectrum the state of Maryland supported the construction of both football and baseball stadiums with the state lottery. You have close to 100% public financing there. These projects have to be tailored to local perspectives.

Q: Would you disagree with the idea there is a trend towards more debt, more public financing, more independent deals and teams striking out on their own away from the partnership that has made the League what it is so far?

PT: I don’t not think there is any trend. There have always been a wide variety of views in the NFL. I’ve been involved since the late ‘60s. There have always been a wide variety of views on how to strike the best balance between strong recognition that it is a business partnership and a business joint venture, that the product is NFL football and everyone should share in the economic rewards of producing that product on the one hand and how to properly incent the teams on the other hand to perform. The biggest current factor that incents teams to perform is our Collective Bargaining Agreement, where you can within the salary cap, lose players or acquire players not just through the draft but from other teams. It is a very difficult and competitive environment. The competitiveness of that is being reflected on the field where we have tremendous games every week.

Q: You have served on boards. If there were one or two pieces of advice in general you could give to corporate board members from your understanding of how boards and charitable organizations work, is there something that board members should be doing that you see them not doing or vice-versa? Is there some piece of advice you would like to give to our readers in terms of how they go about taking their duties seriously?

PT: Many things are critical. Two things should be at the top of any list. Number one is diversity: diversity of experience, diversity of interests, diversity of point of view. That produces healthy dialogue on a board. It makes an organization both innovative and forces an organization to engage in critical self-examination, which is very important.

The second thing is that board members need to be active, engaged and understand the business at the level of the customer. Focus on customer interest and needs and not just on a distant view of the market place.

Q: A lot of people would love to get into pro sports. Did you dream of getting into pro sports when you were young? I know you played basketball at Georgetown. Are sports somewhere you always wanted your career to head or did just happen by circumstance?

PT: It just happened to come out this way. When I was beginning my professional career, sports was the furthest thing from my mind. My only dream in sports was to be the center of the New York Knicks but that was not to be.