The Nfl

A Declaration of Independence

In the old days—oh, about four or five years ago—commissioner Pete Rozelle and his ad hoc vice-commissioner, Cowboy president Tex Schramm, could really work a room. If they didn't have the necessary votes to pass a rule or bylaw they thought was best for the league, they would lobby their old pals among the owners, take straw votes and lobby some more until they got enough support. Rozelle and Schramm should have been working Capitol Hill, they were so good.

But as last week's annual owners' meeting in Phoenix showed, genuine democracy now exists in the league. Even the passionate interests of new NFL potentates Paul Tagliabue, who succeeded Rozelle as commissioner in 1989, and Jim Finks, the Saints president who replaced Schramm as chairman of the rules-making Competition Committee the same year, can't be force-fed to an owners' group that now includes more independent thinkers. Finks watched helplessly as instant replay was voted down after a star-crossed six-year run, and Tagliabue tabled until March 30 a vote on a watershed plan he had endorsed to restructure and extend the current television contract.

"The league will never be the same as it was a few years ago," says an owner who bought his team in the 1980s. "You can't twist arms and force things down throats the way Schramm used to."

Instant replay had survived by the minimum three-quarters vote (21-7) in each of the last two years, but 11 teams opposed it this year. Philadelphia and Dallas had opposed the replay in recent years, but neither wanted to cast the deciding vote to eliminate it. The Bucs and the Jets also hated it but had fallen in line with the league office. This year all four teams put their votes where their mouths had been.

The proposal to rework the TV contract is more complicated. Cleveland owner Art Modell, who as head of the Broadcast Committee for 30 years had enjoyed almost carte blanche to work with the commissioner in hammering out lucrative deals with the networks, is being met head-on by a contingent of owners who oppose his proposal to offer relief for the advertising-depressed networks. Modell's committee proposed rolling back the scheduled 18-week regular seasons in 1992 and '93 to 17 weeks and reducing each team's TV revenue for 1993 from $41 million to $34 million. In exchange the networks would extend the league's contract two years, through 1995.

In other words each team would receive about $34 million a season for the next four years, and the league would not have to face the uncertainty of negotiating in what could be hard times when the current contract expires after the '93 season. "I think I could have pushed it [relief for the networks] through," said Tagliabue, even though at least 10 teams spoke out against the deal either publicly or privately last week.

The argument to keep the contract intact, from Dallas owner Jerry Jones: "I believe the economy's going to be so much better in 1993 and 1994 that it would be inappropriate to redo the contract now. Nothing I see—in attendance, in TV ratings—points to a major meltdown in our sport. Let's see what happens and then do another contract when this one's finished."

The argument to rework and extend the deal, from Modell: "In getting the payment up to $41 million per team, we added an 18th week of games to create more product for the networks. That glutted the [depressed advertising] market. Now we're better off tightening the marketplace and getting stability in return."

Another factor is involved here. NBC almost walked away from the NFL during contract negotiations in 1990 before relenting and agreeing to pay $752 million for the rights to AFC games for four years and to one Super Bowl. If NBC gets no relief when the owners vote on March 30, the threat that the network might drop its NFL coverage will be even greater, leaving ABC or the inexperienced Fox network to pick up NBC's share of the Sunday afternoon telecasts. "It'll be a dark day for the league if this measure's not approved," says Modell, whose negotiating powers would be undercut if the proposal is voted down. "We've always had a healthy partnership with the networks. Our doors have been open to them if they have problems, and their doors have been open to us."