ROGER GOODELL
Where to begin?
Allow me please.
What a self-indulgent, grossly overpaid world-class keyhole.
Smug. Smarmy. A chest-thumping peacock.
BusinessWeek writers Geoff Gloeckler and Tom Lowry have dubbed him “the most powerful man in sports” and he may just be.
Never mind.
All you have to do is look at him and think about it. Appearances aren’t everything — in fact sometimes they mean next to nothing or nothing at all — granted.
But…
Roger Goodell reeks of privilege. His father Charles was a United States Senator from New York-R appointed by Nelson Rockefeller (September 10, 1968-January 3, 1971) to fill the vacancy left by the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. As a member of the House of Representatives earlier in his political career he straddled the moderate/conservative line but as a Senator he was nearly as liberal as Sen. Jacob K. Javits which did not bode well for him.
This shift in political philosophy ultimately cost Goodell in the November 1970 election as he split the liberal vote with candidate Richard Ottinger, a Democratic Congressman and was defeated by Conservative Party nominee James L. Buckley.
Goodell would be the last appointed U.S. Senator from New York until 2009 when Kirsten Gillibrand was selected to replace Hillary Clinton, who had been appointed Secretary of State by President Barack Obama.
An only child, Goodell was born in Jamestown, New York and was a star three-sport athlete at Bronxville High School, captaining the football, basketball and baseball teams as a senior and winning the school’s athlete-of-the-year award.
Upon his 1981 graduation from Washington and Jefferson College he began his career in the NFL as an administrative intern in the New York-based league office.
After a brief stint with the New York Jets also as an intern, Goodell returned to league headquarters in 1984 to take a position as an assistant in the PR department.
From there his ascent was swift and on the surface at least, seemingly preordained. To many it appeared that he was being groomed to become the next commissioner, even then.
In 1987 Goodell was appointed assistant to the President of the American Football Conference, Lamar Hunt. The mid-’90s served as the backdrop for his rise to Senior VP in charge of football development overseeing the league’s highest-profile assignments such as international opportunity potential, league expansion and stadium construction.
By 2001 he was reveling in his appointment as the NFL’s Executive Vice-President and COO.
Appointment here, appointment there.
And with the retirement of Commissioner Paul Tagliabue, Goodell had deftly maneuvered himself — or had been deftly maneuvered — into a candidacy to assume the reins.
Everyone in the know felt it was his game to lose.
It took five rounds of voting but ultimately he was chosen over four other finalists for the position, only one of whom boasted any NFL association — Levy, the league’s outside attorney (Gregg Levy; Frederick Nance; Robert L. Reynolds; and Mayo A. Shattuck III).
Goodell won a close vote on the fifth ballot before being unanimously approved by acclamation of the owners — his new bosses.
He was elected on August 8th. and his tenure as Commissioner of the NFL began on September 1, 2006.
About a year ago Jason Notte wrote a piece for MarketWatch in which he asserted that Roger Goodell has taken home $180.5 million since 2009. (Owners have paid Goodell well over $200 million since he succeeded Tagliabue in 2006).
Notte unabashedly conceded that “high-level CEO skills” were more than a bit beyond him.
He made another compelling point: NFL Commissioner Goodell’s 2014 salary ($34.1 million) and his career earnings totalled more than the league’s owners have been willing to spend on their own stadiums.
(In 1998 the Glazers put up zero toward the $194 million construction of Raymond James Stadium for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers; $22.4 million was contributed to the $226 million cost of M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore that same year; and in 2000 the Cincinnati Bengals found but $25 million for a stadium that ended up costing $450 million and which nearly drowned surrounding Hamilton County in debt).
Eight clubs have built or are in the process of building new stadiums since Goodell took over — including in Los Angeles — while 14 others have undertaken major stadium renovations.
Shocking in the context of appropriation of taxpayer dollars but the way of the world in high-powered wealthy circles. And certainly no aberration in the world of the NFL.
Further, Notte states that, “…of the 21 stadiums built throughout the league since 1997, team owners and the NFL itself have dedicated more than $180.5 million to just nine of them. Even among those stadiums, only five had the majority of their costs covered by the league and owners’ outlays.”
Notte keenly observed that Goodell’s $34.1 million 2014 compensation according to Bloomberg made the commish the 62nd. highest-paid CEO in the country, behind Larry Merlo of CVS.
The kicker?
CVS generated $153 billion in revenue in 2015, about 12 times the $13 billion produced by the NFL in 2014.
(In fairness, the league’s annual revenue stream has doubled under Goodell’s watch and the projection is to reach $25 billion by 2027. Considering a television ratings dip experienced during the election year and whatever other permutations may arise to negatively impact viewership, this exponential growth target may be a bit optimistic).
Notte’s rationale supporting his claim that as CEO Goodell lacks the aforementioned “high-level skills” is based on the commissioner’s tepid responses to several player-related incidents and obviously not to his ability to broker, coerce, cajole and forcefully leverage money-making deals for the league and his owner-bosses.
Characterized as “indifferent,” “indecisive,” “distant” and “a waffler” when examining his reactions to the Ray Rice, Adrian Peterson, Ray McDonald, Greg Hardy, Josh Gordon and Wes Welker cases, Notte may have a point.
The owners of course place the dollar above all else, including league image. They chest-bump and crow amongst themselves over lucrative independent broadcasting deals negotiated under the Goodell regime with Fox, CBS, NBC, ESPN and DirecTV.
To wit the particulars:
Fox/CBS/NBC — a combined $28 billion or somewhere in the neighborhood of $1 billion per year for NFL broadcast rights through 2022 including playoff games and rotating Super Bowl assignments; ESPN — $1.9 billion/year to host Monday Night Football through 2022; and DirecTV — $1.5 billion/year through 2022 for exclusive rights to the NFL Sunday Ticket multi-channel out-of-town games package.
(Goodell and his people were well aware that the loss of this package to DirecTV would have killed AT&T’s $48.5 billion takeover of the satellite-TV provider. Brokering, coercing, cajoling or leveraging?).
And that’s not all.
Another $275 million was skirted into league coffers from CBS for partial rights to Thursday Night Football games in 2014. For 2015 the deal was renewed at a “slightly higher rate” and then sold to both CBS and NBC for the privileged 2016 broadcasting rights.
Notte steadfastly posits that these deals gave NFL teams $226 million each for inhaling and exhaling.
That’s $7.2 billion from television alone.
For “existing.”
They don’t have to spend their dollars if they can get taxpayers to foot the bill. Your dough and mine. “To help preserve its profits and line their pockets.”
Not a bad investment.
They pay Roger instead.
True.
But for how much longer after the expiration of his current deal in March 2019?
At an executive session of the Finance and Compensation Committees at the recently held Phoenix league meetings this very subject was broached. Suffice to say that the owners who continue to print money Monopoly-style — Forbes estimates that the average NFL franchise value skyrocketed by 19% from 2015–2016 to $2.34 billion — feel his $30-plus million average yearly compensation is excessive.
Putting the hammerlock on players and municipalities could very well expand to include Goodell.
But Roger Goodell still sits in the catbird seat as he has from day one. With the CBA in place through 2020 and the television broadcast rights deals expiring after 2022, the owners need him to use his negotiating acumen — his greatest strength — one time more.
On the flip side, Goodell will be 60 just before his own contract is up in March 2019. He could decide to retire and start to enjoy the fortune he’s made.
On all of us.
Either way, “the most powerful…[and loathed] man in sports” comes out smelling like a rose.
[Editor’s Note: This piece was written by Mr. Kaplan in April 2017.]
ADDENDA: In December 2017 Roger Goodell signed a $200 million five-year contract extension to remain NFL Commissioner which runs through the 2023 season.
At Goodell’s insistence and in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic, the 2020 NFL Draft will be held virtually April 23–25. The sports world in particular and the world in general has been largely if not completely shuttered since early March.
