SBJ Football: NFL owner disputes come out into the open

NFL owners hadn’t all been in one place in nearly two years, and when they gathered this week it didn’t take long for sparks to fly. The one-two punch of the Washington investigation and the St. Louis trial over the Rams’ move to L.A. are causing big problems at the league’s highest levels. The former also exposed Commissioner Roger Goodell to the kind of intense public ridicule he’d mostly avoided over the last few years.

Around lunchtime Wednesday, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said he speaks for all membership in that he’s “ very satisfied” with the outcome of the WFT investigation, which produced no specific findings or any formal report other than a single, vague summary. Minutes later, Raiders owner Mark Davis said the opposite-- and took the league to task for not informing him of the Jon Gruden emails for months after they learned about them. Jags owner Shad Khan told the Wall Street Journal of the investigation: "It seems unsatisfying."

The night before, Goodell shut down calls for a report, claiming that it was impossible to share more about the investigation without jeopardizing witness anonymity. Of course, some witnesses have explicitly waived that right, and prosecutors and other investigators routinely produce reports that manage to protect anonymity and still document findings (the Blackhawks and law firm Jenner & Block did precisely that just hours before Goodell spoke). In pieces across the country this week, the media called attention to Goodell’s deeply flawed rationale.

The WFT issue is big -- some owners are growing frustrated that so much goodwill is being spent to protect Dan Snyder, an unpopular owner.  But it may prove to be small potatoes compared to how the owners’ fraternity is handling the looming St. Louis trial over the Rams’ relocation.

As the two-day meeting was wrapping up, ESPN’s Seth Wickersham produced a highly detailed accountof a contentious executive session with owners and top NFL lawyer Jeff Pash. It emerged that Rams owner Stan Kroenke may try to back out of his promise to indemnify his peers in the St. Louis case. Reaction in the room pitted Jones, a Kroenke defender, against powerhouse owners Robert Kraft of the Patriots and John Mara of the Giants, Wickersham reported. 

This issue carries extraordinary stakes. Damages in St. Louis could easily range into the billions of dollars, and as the ESPN story notes, Mara said nobody would have approved the Rams’ move if Kroenke hadn’t agreed to assume the legal risk. 

But aside from the specifics, consider the fact that the ESPN story exists at all. People in that room leaked attorney-client privileged information, in detail, within 18 hours of it happening. This comes as speculation continues unabated about the provenance of the Gruden email leaks. Trust is in short supply among the owners right now. 

By the way, a Missouri appeals court could rule shortly on the NFL’s last-ditch bid to get the trial moved out of St. Louis. If the league is successful, legal experts think their exposure in that case declines considerably. But they’ve had no luck to date on that argument.

Between now and early January, we should expect negotiations to crescendo between the Bills and their public-sector counterparts over cost sharing for a new stadium.

On Wednesday, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said she expects a stadium to be included in her January budget proposal to state lawmakers -- that’s the deadline for some kind of preliminary MOU with the team. Meanwhile, AECOM will produce a detailed report very soon on behalf of the state, detailing what should be in a new Bills home and what it would cost. That’s the final move on the chessboard before talks. “Next is to get in the room with the state and the county and get a deal done for a new stadium,” said Bills Exec VP Ron Raccuia.

The main issue will be the cost sharing between Pegula Sports & Entertainment and the government. Location and roof are two topics to keep an eye on also -- the Bills prefer a $1.4 billion plan to build a new outdoor stadium in Orchard Park, because it’s cheaper and could be built more quickly, Raccuia said. But there may an argument from the government that downtown/indoors would be more versatile.

Without a deal in time for Hochul’s budget presentation, things get tough. The Democratic gubernatorial primary would complicate things, and by then we’d be within one season of the Bills’ current lease expiring.

Roger Goodell is frustrated by the number of NFL teams that have not invested in the business side at levels he would prefer. That is the genesis behind the NFL’s unusual decision to specifically call out five teams in August for lagging offseason ticket sales. But things change quickly in the NFL, and the presentation slide that created waves in August wouldn’t look the same today.

Take the Jets, for instance. That August call-out came three weeks before their home opener against the Patriots, which turned out to be the best-attended game in the NFL that week (the Jets sell more single-game and group-ticket packages than most, which tend to be later to move than season tickets). The Jets play in the 82,500-seat MetLife Stadium, which means they can be No. 6 in raw attendance but still have more empty seats than most. One league official said the Jets’ business side has done well despite their non-competitive team. “They get after it on a number of levels,” this source said.

Also consider the Bengals, who were on that slide, but since then, have seen a 30% boost in average attendance over 2019 with the team atop the AFC North.

• Some of the biggest sports properties have cashed in on the cryptocurrency marketing trend this year, with huge sponsorship deals in F1, UFC, the NBA and MLB. But the NFL still has an effective moratorium on club sponsorships in the crypto category, even while it allows its TV rightsholders to sell crypto ads. This story from my colleague Terry Lefton is worth a click.

• NBC Sports' Chris Simms has signed on to promote sportsbook operator PointsBet, creating weekly online videos with film breakdowns geared toward NFL bettors and developing a weekly PointsBet sponsored betting segment on his “Chris Simms Unbuttoned” podcast, per SBJ's Bill King. Simms joins Drew Brees as an endorser of PointsBet, the official sportsbook of NBC Sports.

• The Jets landed a multiyear partnership with Quidel, marking the first NFL team deal for the company, which becomes an official diagnostics partner of the club. Quidel, creator of the QuickVue At-Home OTC COVID-19 Test, will receive brand exposure on the Jets' press conference backdrop and signage/activations at MetLife Stadium.

• Bojangles is decking out some its restaurants to mimic the QSR's sports-themed Big Bo Boxes, and my colleague Austin Karp has already found himself in line (a few times) at the Panthers-themed restaurant near our Charlotte HQ.

• Raiders Owner Mark Davis confirmed for the first time this week that former team President Marc Badain, CFO Ed Villanueva and Controller Araxie Grant resigned in July because the team overpaid taxes it may not be able to recoup. “It’s pretty much clear now, or I don’t know if it’s clear now, but it was accounting irregularities,” Davis said. Full story here.
  
  

• My boss Abe Madkour in this week's print issue looked back at David Baker’s tenure as president of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Madkour: "Baker has been the face of the Hall of Fame since 2014. ... He won over the 180-plus living Hall of Famers with his enthusiasm and vision, and also his initiatives -- such as starting new health programs for players and involving them in paid appearances on behalf of Hall of Fame sponsors. He certainly raised the Hall’s national profile, secured a multiyear, $100 million sponsorship from Johnson Controls and made a dramatic renovation to the Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium on the campus." Read the full piece here.

• Chiefs Exec VP/Business Operations Tyler Epp is headed to Miami to become Senior VP and COO for the new F1 Miami Grand Prix, which will run near Hard Rock Stadium (the Dolphins' Tom Garfinkel is managing partner for the F1 venture). Epp spent the last eight years with the Chiefs.

• SBJ this week rolled out our Power Players list of the top outside counsel in the sports business ranks, and a host of firms have done football work. Among those was Covington & Burling, which  was highlighted for its extensive work for the NFL (one of Covington's senior partners -- Paul Tagliabue -- was commissioner for 17 years). That work has included advising the league on its revolving credit facility programs and its G-3 and G-4 stadium funding programs. Neema Sahni, a 2020 SBJ Forty Under 40 honoree, and Derek Ludwin have also repped the NFL in antitrust challenges to its exclusive arrangements with DirecTV to distribute "Sunday Ticket." 
  
  

• Ownership ranks in sports are becoming more diverse, but there are still hurdles that remain. SBJ's Chris Smith took a look at the landscape in this week's print issue, and this nugget stood out: None of the biggest North American men’s leagues has more women among its lead team investors than the NFL. In fact, the league counts 40% of its teams as having women who own or share primary control, and many have roles on top committees. Read the full story here.
  
  

• This week's episode of "The Marchand & Ourand Sports Media Podcast" is live. Topics include reasons behind the NFL's strong viewership this season and a look at Joe Buck's career. In their regular “Who’s up, who’s down” segment, Ourand points to the NFL, which is in a prime position to again capitalize on the rights for Sunday Ticket.
  
  

• Retro gaming company Arcade1Up signed a multiyear deal with the Dolphins that will see the creation of the Arcade1Up Game Lounge at Hard Rock Stadium, a retro arcade experience that could be the first of its kind in an NFL stadium.