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Business & Tech

Tagliabue Takes the Long View of Professional Football

Lesher NEWSMAKERS Speaker Series brought former NFL commissioner to Walnut Creek for a state-of-the-game talk and Q&A.

Anyone who listened to the late Al Davis speak about football knows that leadership and the National Football League are colorful subjects for discussion.

On Wednesday, former NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue picked up the ball and ran with it, shedding light on his 17-year tenure during a 60-minute lecture and follow-up Q&A at the Lesher’s NEWSMAKERS speaker series.

“Al Davis’ death leaves a huge void,” Tagliabue said, in opening remarks. “The game lost a sharp voice.”

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The former commissioner, who assumed his role leading the NFL with a background as a college basketball player, Rhodes scholar, lawyer specializing in anti-trust litigation, then delivered a disclaimer: the views he was about to express were his own, and not that of the NFL.

The remark, tantalizing in suggestiveness, turned out to be largely unnecessary as Tagliabue skirted most controversial aspects facing the league until the final minutes of his presentation.

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Leading the sold-out audience through a synopsis of NFL history, Tagliabue satisfied stat-hungry football fans.

  • 1920: NFL founded
  • 1946: first teams placed in California
  • 1961: National television contract established. Equal rights to revenue sharing.
  • At one time, 14 teams split the year’s $5 million revenue; meaning roughly $357,000 to each. Now, with 32 teams, $5 billion is in the purse; resulting in 160 million to each team.
  • During his term alone, salary caps, video game marketing, and revenue sharing transformed a $970-million-a-year business into a $5 billion-a-year industry giant. 

Tagliabue said tight restrictions on league decisions — a super-majority is required to pass — place a healthy, intense pressure on teams striving to tip their advantage and win.

“But head coaches are ultimately the ones who pull away from other teams,” he cautioned.

John Madden, who he called “The Emperor,” and Bill Walsh, who he said responded intelligently to whatever presented itself, earned his praise for innovation.

He remembered visiting straight-talker Bill Parcells on the 50-yard line while defensive lines practiced in either end zone. Occasionally, the crusty coach would call a player up and tell him in great detail everything he was doing wrong.

“How in the hell can you see what they are doing [from 50 yards out]?” Tagliabue finally asked. “Parcells answered, ‘We decided last night who we would chew out by viewing videos — it has nothing to do with what they are doing! Here’s the list, five more to go.’”

Football’s tough, confrontational style reflects man’s innate hunting instinct and an industrial era lived by the clock in machine-like patterns, he suggested.

Acknowledging the nation’s preoccupation with the game — he referred to studies showing football audiences are larger than baseball, racing and basketball viewers combined — Tagliabue concluded his talk with comments about safety and tensions between athletics and academics.

A medical committee established in 1994 spurred research into brain injuries and led to equipment improvements, he claimed. Over the next 10 years, the NFL plans to invest $100 million in head, neck and spine research to improve safety.

Tagliabue is concerned that disputes between college athletic and academic departments will lead to a dead end.

“The Knight Commission or the NCAA should analyze and decide if an entirely new approach is needed,” he said.

In the 20-minute Q&A, Tagliabue said he did not think his successor was “the hanging judge,” despite an increased attention to fines.

“That’s more the media than reality,” he said, adding that Roger Goodell’s actions had their benefits. “You get people’s attention and then you don’t have to worry about it.”

Tagliabue took a say-it-plain attitude in response to a question about steroids and human growth hormone use in the NFL.

“I don’t think you’ll ever be able to eliminate these substances ... until players don’t want it in the game,” he said.

The lightest moment of the evening came with a question about the infamous “halftime wardrobe snafu” with Janet Jackson in the 2004 Super Bowl.

“I didn’t see it,” Tagliabue announced, explaining that his daughter had to tell him what had happened. Later, he viewed the same broadcast millions of viewers had seen.

“It was not a good experience,” he admitted, to much laughter.

Tagliabue had only one regret: team moves and the related fact that the league hadn’t intervened in stadium building earlier.

His favorite memories were of going to playoff games, especially the ones in Green Bay, Wisc. Referring to the experience of sitting with 120,000 Packer fans as “unmatchable,” his love for the game was almost tangible.

The most personal moment arrived when he was asked about mentorship. He answered with a quote from his father that defined the work ethic that shaped his professional life.

“My dad used to say, ‘If you don’t have anything to do, here’s a broom: sweep the street.’ We lived in Jersey City and those streets were wide. You could be out there for hours.”

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