NFL Owners Taking A Significant Step On Tuesday
The NFL’s 32 owners last met in December 2019, months before COVID-19 swept across the globe. Now, with numerous issues facing the league, and the prevalence of vaccines opening up more opportunities for in-person activity, the owners will get together for the first time in almost two years.
The meetings start today in New York City, according to Sports Business Journal. The status of the Washington Football Team investigation, and the various email leaks stemming from it, are expected to be top of mind, though according to the report, “little official discussion about the emails” is expected.
“Whether in open meetings or private discussions, it’s likely that at some point someone will raise concerns about the stated confidentiality of the WFT investigation results and the obvious failure by someone (or multiple someones) to honor it,” ProFootballTalk‘s Mike Florio says. The ongoing St. Louis Rams lawsuit, Buffalo Bills and Chicago Bears stadium issues, and negotiations over the future of NFL Sunday Ticket on DirecTV are also expected discussion points.
“Talks on Sunday Ticket remain in preliminary phases with more than a year left on the deal, but there is some reason to believe momentum is growing around a package that would split rights between incumbent DirecTV and a major streaming platform or two, among whom interest is high,” SBJ reports. “League execs have not started formal talks on the package yet. League sources are mum about what, specifically, will be in the update.”
As the owners meet in person for the first time since December 2019, what will they and the Commissioner have to say to reporters about the WFT email scandal? https://t.co/8WcvbwFDcz
— ProFootballTalk (@ProFootballTalk) October 26, 2021
According to Peter King, the meetings are expected to be “pretty vanilla,” when it comes to Washington Football Team. Tonya Snyder, and not Dan, is expected to represent that franchise.
• League meetings this week in New York, notable for this reason: It’s the first time owners have met en masse in person since December 2019. Not a lot of substance on the agenda. You can be sure there will be some discussion of the Washington Football Team and the Congressional inquiry into the league’s investigation into the multiple sexual-harassment cases with the franchises, and the league’s sanction. Smart money is on the WFT discussions in the open sessions being pretty vanilla, because the league knows it’s full of leaks right now. Hearing it’ll be Tonya Snyder, the team’s co-CEO, representing the team, with husband Dan still on double-secret probation and not fully involved in team functions.
• I’ll be interested to see when Daniel Snyder gets his full authority back. If it keeps getting put off (and no one is certain when commissioner Roger Goodell will fully reinstate him), suspicions will rise that he’s being kept in the doghouse because the league may think he or his reps are behind the leaking of information that got Jon Gruden dismissed, and tarnished former club president Bruce Allen and league legal counsel Jeff Pash.
We’ll see if much comes of the NFL meetings today, via leak or otherwise.
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