Major Headaches Lie Ahead For Goodell and the NFL
The Business of Sport
By EVAN WEINER
November 20, 2006
Roger Goodell is learning quickly that running North America's most successful sports organization is not an easy job. The National Football League currently does not have deals in place with either Time Warner or Cablevision to carry the small schedule of regular season games that are scheduled to air on the NFL Network beginning on Thanksgiving night. The Jets and Giants believe the league should loan them $300 million not $150 million to help finance their proposed Meadowlands stadium. Goodell also has yet to address problems with revenue sharing between the high-revenue owners, including Washington's Daniel Snyder, Dallas's Jerry Jones, Houston's Robert McNair, New England's Robert Kraft, and Philadelphia's Jeffrey Lurie, and the low-revenue guys like Buffalo's Ralph Wilson and Cincinnati's Mike Brown.
Then there is the Los Angeles project. The former NFL Commissioner, Paul Tagliabue, failed to put a team in Los Angeles in 1999, and his plans to get the league back into the area, the country's second biggest market, by 2009 never materialized.
The NFL Network needs to reach a deal with Time Warner which has a little more than a million subscribers in the New York City area because of a complicated deal involving the Federal Communications Commission and the cable TV operator. In July, the FCC approved Time Warner's acquisition, with Comcast, of the assets of a bankrupt Adelphia Communications Corporation. Since it had been carried on Adelphia, the NFL Network was part of this deal.
On August 1, Time Warner announced plans to drop the NFL Network from its newly acquired Adelphia cable systems. The NFL petitioned the FCC in an attempt to keep the network on the old Adelphia systems. And on August 3, the FCC ordered Time Warner to live up to the terms of the previous Adelphia deal at least for a month with the hope that the NFL and Time Warner could work out their differences. Instead, on September 15, Time Warner dropped the NFL Network from former Adelphia systems across the country.
While the NFL contends it is providing a worthwhile product, Time Warner complains the NFL is asking for too much money per subscriber to place the network on basic expanded cable.
The NFL did reach a deal to carry the network with the nation's third-largest cable system, Cox, but it will be available on a smaller, digital sports and information pay tier, and not basic expanded cable, which is not good news for Goodell and his owners. The nation's largest multiple systems operator, Comcast, has its own plans to move the NFL network to a sports tier in January. This doesn't please the NFL, which has filed suit against Comcast because it argues its deal with the Philadelphia-based MSO guaranteed the NFL Network would be part of a basic expanded package.
The CEO of Comcast, Brian Roberts, may be getting back at the NFL for failing to complete a deal that would have put those eight regular-season contests on his OLN (Versus) channel. The NFL and Comcast had a deal in place but the NFL backed out and decided to hold the games for its own network.
The NFL Network isn't Goodell's only problem. The new Giants-Jets Meadowlands stadium and development project could be stalled if the league doesn't free up some $300 million in loans to the Woody Johnson and Wellington Mara-Bob Tisch franchises. Just where that leaves the Meadowlands project is unknown, but the NFL has already backed out of stadium building in Los Angeles because the tab for getting the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum up to 21st-century standards could reach $1 billion.
The Los Angeles problem has been a major headache since Georgia Frontiere moved her Rams from Anaheim to St. Louis in 1995, and Al Davis left the L.A. Memorial Coliseum to return to Oakland the same year. Paul Tagliabue and his 31 owners virtually handed Los Angeles an expansion franchise that would start in 2002, but failed to convince local and state politicians to approve funding for a facility. Seven years later, the NFL still cannot get public funding in L.A., Pasadena, or Anaheim.
Meanwhile, San Francisco 49ers owner John York has announced he is exploring a move down Highway 101 to the South Bay area and Santa Clara. In 1997, San Francisco residents approved a spending package to build a new football facility at Candlestick Point, but nothing was ever done.
York's plans have not made Senator Feinstein very happy. A California democrat and a former mayor of San Francisco, Feinstein now sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee and may introduce legislation that would require the NFL to sign off on any franchise relocation. The NFL actually has a rule on the book that requires threequarters of the owners to approve a move. The last time the NFL tried to stop an owner from moving was in 1980 when Davis took his Raiders from Oakland to Los Angeles. League owners don't want to be reminded of their decision Davis sued his fellow owners, won, and wound up in L.A.
The California problem extends to San Diego where Alex Spanos is negotiating with suburban San Diego cities to build a new Chargers stadium after San Diego city officials told him they could not meet his demands for a new facility.
Goodell and the NFL owners did not touch the revenue-sharing issue at their fall meetings in New Orleans a few weeks back, and they seem to be no closer to figuring out a solution.
The league has not really talked much with its member clubs about revenue sharing, but the United States Senate is monitoring talks on the subject. Senator Schumer is pressuring Goodell and the owners to get a deal done. With the Democrats now in control of the Senate, the NFL might feel more inclined to get the deal done, particularly with Schumer wielding more influence as major strategist in the democrats' election day win.
Whether the New Orleans Saints owner, Tom Benson, remains in Louisiana is another difficult situation. New Orleans no longer has a corporate community that can buy high-end tickets for luxury boxes and club seats or buy marketing partnerships or sponsorships; a recipe for financial disaster.
But the most pressing problem for Goodell is to find a way to bring about a resolution in the Time Warner- Cablevision negotiations. Right now both the cable operators and the NFL owners are playing a game of hardball that could result in a good number of football fans having to follow the Denver-Kansas City tilt the old-fashioned way. On the radio.
http://www.nysun.com/article/43841
The Business of Sport
By EVAN WEINER
November 20, 2006
Roger Goodell is learning quickly that running North America's most successful sports organization is not an easy job. The National Football League currently does not have deals in place with either Time Warner or Cablevision to carry the small schedule of regular season games that are scheduled to air on the NFL Network beginning on Thanksgiving night. The Jets and Giants believe the league should loan them $300 million not $150 million to help finance their proposed Meadowlands stadium. Goodell also has yet to address problems with revenue sharing between the high-revenue owners, including Washington's Daniel Snyder, Dallas's Jerry Jones, Houston's Robert McNair, New England's Robert Kraft, and Philadelphia's Jeffrey Lurie, and the low-revenue guys like Buffalo's Ralph Wilson and Cincinnati's Mike Brown.
Then there is the Los Angeles project. The former NFL Commissioner, Paul Tagliabue, failed to put a team in Los Angeles in 1999, and his plans to get the league back into the area, the country's second biggest market, by 2009 never materialized.
The NFL Network needs to reach a deal with Time Warner which has a little more than a million subscribers in the New York City area because of a complicated deal involving the Federal Communications Commission and the cable TV operator. In July, the FCC approved Time Warner's acquisition, with Comcast, of the assets of a bankrupt Adelphia Communications Corporation. Since it had been carried on Adelphia, the NFL Network was part of this deal.
On August 1, Time Warner announced plans to drop the NFL Network from its newly acquired Adelphia cable systems. The NFL petitioned the FCC in an attempt to keep the network on the old Adelphia systems. And on August 3, the FCC ordered Time Warner to live up to the terms of the previous Adelphia deal at least for a month with the hope that the NFL and Time Warner could work out their differences. Instead, on September 15, Time Warner dropped the NFL Network from former Adelphia systems across the country.
While the NFL contends it is providing a worthwhile product, Time Warner complains the NFL is asking for too much money per subscriber to place the network on basic expanded cable.
The NFL did reach a deal to carry the network with the nation's third-largest cable system, Cox, but it will be available on a smaller, digital sports and information pay tier, and not basic expanded cable, which is not good news for Goodell and his owners. The nation's largest multiple systems operator, Comcast, has its own plans to move the NFL network to a sports tier in January. This doesn't please the NFL, which has filed suit against Comcast because it argues its deal with the Philadelphia-based MSO guaranteed the NFL Network would be part of a basic expanded package.
The CEO of Comcast, Brian Roberts, may be getting back at the NFL for failing to complete a deal that would have put those eight regular-season contests on his OLN (Versus) channel. The NFL and Comcast had a deal in place but the NFL backed out and decided to hold the games for its own network.
The NFL Network isn't Goodell's only problem. The new Giants-Jets Meadowlands stadium and development project could be stalled if the league doesn't free up some $300 million in loans to the Woody Johnson and Wellington Mara-Bob Tisch franchises. Just where that leaves the Meadowlands project is unknown, but the NFL has already backed out of stadium building in Los Angeles because the tab for getting the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum up to 21st-century standards could reach $1 billion.
The Los Angeles problem has been a major headache since Georgia Frontiere moved her Rams from Anaheim to St. Louis in 1995, and Al Davis left the L.A. Memorial Coliseum to return to Oakland the same year. Paul Tagliabue and his 31 owners virtually handed Los Angeles an expansion franchise that would start in 2002, but failed to convince local and state politicians to approve funding for a facility. Seven years later, the NFL still cannot get public funding in L.A., Pasadena, or Anaheim.
Meanwhile, San Francisco 49ers owner John York has announced he is exploring a move down Highway 101 to the South Bay area and Santa Clara. In 1997, San Francisco residents approved a spending package to build a new football facility at Candlestick Point, but nothing was ever done.
York's plans have not made Senator Feinstein very happy. A California democrat and a former mayor of San Francisco, Feinstein now sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee and may introduce legislation that would require the NFL to sign off on any franchise relocation. The NFL actually has a rule on the book that requires threequarters of the owners to approve a move. The last time the NFL tried to stop an owner from moving was in 1980 when Davis took his Raiders from Oakland to Los Angeles. League owners don't want to be reminded of their decision Davis sued his fellow owners, won, and wound up in L.A.
The California problem extends to San Diego where Alex Spanos is negotiating with suburban San Diego cities to build a new Chargers stadium after San Diego city officials told him they could not meet his demands for a new facility.
Goodell and the NFL owners did not touch the revenue-sharing issue at their fall meetings in New Orleans a few weeks back, and they seem to be no closer to figuring out a solution.
The league has not really talked much with its member clubs about revenue sharing, but the United States Senate is monitoring talks on the subject. Senator Schumer is pressuring Goodell and the owners to get a deal done. With the Democrats now in control of the Senate, the NFL might feel more inclined to get the deal done, particularly with Schumer wielding more influence as major strategist in the democrats' election day win.
Whether the New Orleans Saints owner, Tom Benson, remains in Louisiana is another difficult situation. New Orleans no longer has a corporate community that can buy high-end tickets for luxury boxes and club seats or buy marketing partnerships or sponsorships; a recipe for financial disaster.
But the most pressing problem for Goodell is to find a way to bring about a resolution in the Time Warner- Cablevision negotiations. Right now both the cable operators and the NFL owners are playing a game of hardball that could result in a good number of football fans having to follow the Denver-Kansas City tilt the old-fashioned way. On the radio.
http://www.nysun.com/article/43841
