Program transcript:
Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. We're in the thick of football season, and we always try to have at least one program on the sport every year. My guest today is Ken Belson, the longtime New York Times reporter. He's covered both the playing and the business side of the NFL, and he has a new book out. It's titled, "Every Day Is Sunday: How Jerry Jones, Robert Kraft, and Roger Goodell Turned the NFL into a Cultural & Economic Juggernaut". Mr. Belson, welcome to the program.
Ken Belson: Thanks for having me on, appreciate it.
GR: Thanks for making the time, we appreciate it. So, we'll get into exactly who did what for the NFL. But first, I just want you to give our listeners an overall sense of this. What have been the biggest changes in the NFL since the, say, the late 1980’s that have turned it into this cultural and economic juggernaut that's in the title of your book?
KB: Yeah, I think the biggest is media. The NFL, like all the leagues, had pretty cozy relationships with the networks over the years. And if you think back to the late 80’s, even into the early 90’s, there was basically three types of packages. There was the AFC package, NFC package, and Monday Night Football. And there were only three bidders, ABC, NBC and CBS. That was kind of it. There was a little bit of cable, ESPN had started to get in, but it was more or less a cozy relationship. And the networks did well, and the league sort of did well, but the growth wasn't really there. It took a fellow named Jerry Jones, a born and bred entrepreneur, to look at that and say, why aren't we running an auction? Which is sort of standard business practice. So he invited, or brought into the fold, a fellow named Rupert Murdoch. And Rupert was desperate to grow his network. If you remember, back in those days, it was Bart Simpson and In Living Color, that was Fox TV at that point. So, by bringing that fourth bidder to the table, the media rights exploded. Rupert outbid CBS, CBS regretted it, came back at double the price four years later. So, that was both a big moment for the NFL, it Was kind of an inflection point, but also for all sports. The NBA saw this, Major League Baseball saw this. So across the sports landscape, you had bidding wars for property rights. And that of course changed the economics of network television as well.
GR: And so, you know, you pull out Jerry Jones, you've just said something about why you would choose him, but you've also got Robert Kraft. Why do these two owners, why are they so much more important than all the other owners?
KB: Well, they joined the league at this critical point. Back in the 80’s, fans of a certain age will remember there were work stoppages. There was a strike, a brief strike in 1987, there were scab players, it was a bad time for the league. They weren't growing well, there was fear of losing games. A fellow named Paul Tagliabue was, longtime general counsel of the league was, or outside counsel to the league, was elected commissioner. And he saw that this was not a stable business model. And so he really worked hard with Dan Rooney of the Pittsburgh Steelers, as the kind of peacemaker amongst the owners and Gene Upshaw to set a foundation for the league. And that included free agency, of course, and the salary cap to offset it, but really revenue sharing. The league and the union finally became, I guess what we would call partners. And they weren't adversaries in the same way they had been for generations, really. So that that also put a floor under the league. And Jerry and Robert came in at this time, they both had paid record amounts for their teams, they both went heavily in debt to do that and they were hungry to pay back their loans. It's that simple. They they had to fix their franchises. The Cowboys were losing $1 million a month. The Patriots were always the last in the league in revenue. So they had some homework to do there. But they also, and this is really where they stand out amongst other owners, they got very involved in league business very quickly. All owners do to some degree, but those two really embraced it. I gave the example of Jerry, you know, bringing Rupert Murdoch to the table. Robert, very quickly. now, he owned part owner of a CBS affiliate in Boston before he owned the team, so he knew the guys at CBS. And guess what? He brought them back to the table for the AFC package at twice the price. So both of them realized, we got to grow the whole pie, we'll share in that of course, but the league itself will benefit from that.
GR: One of the things that I was surprised to recall when I was reading through your book and you just mentioned this, was the fact that the price of the Cowboys when Jones bought it was a record price.
KB: Yeah.
GR: And when I look at the figure and I think, oh man, did he get that cheap, I mean, from today's perspective, he did. But I had sort of created the memory that he bought it cheap at the time. But no, it was considered a real gamble at the time.
KB: Yeah, it was a gamble 115 for the team and then he had to buy the stadium and absorb some debt. I think it came to $140 or 50 million. But you got to remember, this was when the SNL crisis was going on in Dallas, in Texas. The oil market had fallen. So the local economy was doing terribly. The team wasn't good, and they weren't selling suites and tickets. So the team was kind of on its back, and yet he still paid a record amount for it. But yeah, nine figures, wow, now it's easily ten, and someday will be 11 figures for a team. So, yeah, it seems cheap now, but the, you know, the cost of money back then was what it was.
GR: Interesting. So I don't know Kraft and his story as well as I know Jerry Jones. But to me they seem like just two very different kinds of owners and personalities. Aside from, again, you know, making the purchases of the teams at the times when you note. And the other thing I thought they had in common right off the bat is they both had controversial hires as head coaches, you know, Jimmy Johnson for the Cowboys, Bill Belichick for the Patriots. But, you know, you have you have Kraft who is this Jewish kid he went to Columbia on academic scholarship, Harvard Business School. And then as you say, Jones, you know, the entrepreneur, the oil tycoon, he went to Arkansas on an athletic scholarship. How, as you were researching these people, you've talked to them, you know them, how do you assess kind of their core similarities and differences?
KB: Yeah, I actually found they had more in common than I thought. I very much saw what you saw. Boston, South, you know, they're roughly the same age, but very different background, I thought, very different backgrounds. It's really very different styles. They both had dads who were very influential in their lives. Both of their fathers were small businessmen, both left college and went right into business as entrepreneurs. Jerry had the audacity at 23 years old to try and buy the San Diego Chargers and went to Jimmy Hoffa’s pension fund to get a line of credit. It didn't work out, obviously. Robert bought a tennis franchise fairly early on. Both are really, true fans of those teams. I mean, people like to say the owners are just about the money, but they both really love the sport and both love their teams. Robert was a season ticket holder at the woe begotten Schaefer Stadium from the 70’s with his kids. So I think that's genuine. And the other thing is they're very, they think big, and not every owner does that. There were a lot of owners, particularly back then, who were very comfortable, you know, getting their checks and their dividends and so forth. A lot of owners back then had inherited their teams. So it wasn't the same entrepreneurial spirit. And those two guys, because they had businesses outside the league when they joined, were really kind of the new breed, I guess, back then.
GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public
Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm speaking with Ken Belson, the author of, "Every Day Is Sunday: How Jerry Jones, Robert Kraft, and Roger Goodell Turned the NFL into a Cultural & Economic Juggernaut". So, you mentioned that both of them had gone into debt to buy these teams. I had also the sense that though Jones from like a family financial perspective was all in, I mean, it was all or nothing for him. Whereas Kraft, I thought had more money kind of available. I mean, he wasn't like, didn't sink everything he had into the team. I was just thinking, particularly for Jones, do you think that all or nothing investment influenced and fueled some of, not only his approach to the team, but also the league in the way that you've already been describing in terms of television contracts and thinking about those things?
KB: Yeah, there's a hunger to Jerry, or maybe a desperation. I mean, look, he made a lot of money in the oil and gas business, that's an all or nothing kind of business. You take your shots. He also understood, and I mentioned how they both love football, they both understood the power of the NFL brand in a kind of visceral way. There's a great quote in the book from Robert about Jerry. Jerry is one of these sort of irrepressible salespeople whose constantly got balls in the air, juggling, thinking of ideas out loud, pushing other people in the direction he hopes they'll go in. Robert said, Jerry could charm a dog off a meat truck. And it really kind of encapsulated the energy around him and the bone that’s always in his, whatever the bone of the moment is, he hangs on to it. Robert's a very different character. It's not that he's uninterested in making money or closing a deal, he's more a diplomat. And the ideas don't necessarily bubble from Robert, but when the ideas are out there, he finds a way to create, I guess, for lack of a better phrase, a win-win. And he's willing to leave some money on the table because he sees this as a long term play. And that's particularly true in the TV contract world. CBS, let's be honest, even after their merger now, they can't compete with Amazon or Netflix. Those two companies could buy out all of the rights if they really wanted to or could. So, Robert understands, hey, we got to help all of our partners in this endeavor.
GR: Interesting. And so I want to join some of these financial things with the actual things that go on on the football field and the success of the teams, in terms of their playing. And I've got this pet theory actually, about the financial success of the Cowboys over the years and then the impact it's had on the team's success or lack thereof on the field. They, both of them have had great football successes on the field, and they've also had obviously great financial successes in terms of where they sit, Cowboys being the most valuable sports franchise in the world last time I checked. And so I'm just wondering do you think that creates a challenge for these two teams currently under what is now the old ownership, in terms of that collective hunger and the dedication to winning on the field? I sense kind of an underlying complacency for all of Jerry Jones's hunger an underlying complacency for the team in terms of football performance. Because, you know, if you're a player on the Cowboys and you have a successful career, even moderately, you're set for life regardless of whether the team makes the playoffs or not. So, I just wonder if you, any impression you had about that.
KB: Jerry has said and I have no reason to doubt him, that he would give up a certain body part to win another Super Bowl. Robert, you know, despite the six Super Bowl Lombardi trophies and the ten appearances in his tenure, I think it's ten, he's still, I mean, you know, all these guys are also thinking of their legacy, and I want one more before I go and all that. Of course, you can't orchestrate life like that. But no, I don't think the business gets in the way in general. However, Jerry is the only owner that's also the GM. And, although I'm sure he's not sitting around watching tape and analyzing spreadsheets and all the metrics that we have now, everything goes through him. And I think that lack of a division of labor, can be a problem or has been a problem to a certain degree. Number one, it creates a dynamic where the general manager, whoever is the general manager or the coaches are always kind of looking over their shoulder to a certain degree or even more than normal. Robert Kraft, when he got in, he really did meddle in some of the personnel decisions. It was a different time. The salary cap had just come in, it was just a different dynamic. But he said and has said many times, like, the smartest thing he ever did was hire Belichick because he felt like Belichick understood how to manage the salary cap. And, you know, Robert shouldn't be tipping the scales having Drew Bledsoe over for dinner, hearing his woes about Bill Parcells. You know, that just muddies the water. There has to be a clear division of labor. Bill Belichick actually never had the title of GM, but he certainly managed the salary cap and it's paid dividends. So, Jerry, for whatever reason, the hubris, you know, overconfidence has never let that go and I don't think that's really helped.
GR: I agree. That's another one of my pet theories is that joining is just not a good recipe. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Ken Belson. The New York Times reporter is the author of a new book on professional football. It's titled, "Every Day Is Sunday: How Jerry Jones, Robert Kraft, and Roger Goodell Turned the NFL into a Cultural & Economic Juggernaut". Well, we haven't talked about Roger Goodell yet. How does he figure into your story of the growth of the NFL? What were his key contributions?
KB: Yeah. Well, Roger, is a lifer, 40, almost 45 years at the NFL. Born in Jamestown, New York. His dad represented the Western New York and, you know, really the son of a politician, grew up half in Washington and a half in Westchester County. You know, a football jock, I guess, by most accounts. But he wrote to his dad right after graduation and said, I want to be commissioner of the NFL, that has to be one of the top ten job searches in all time.
GR: (laughter)
KB: And he did it. But one of the things I, you know, and Roger, to his credit, I guess, I don’t know if credit is the right word, but he was a go getter. And Paul Tagliabue recognized that Pete Rozelle before him, this kid was hungry. And he kept getting more and more significant assignments, including going to cities and negotiating stadium deals on behalf of teams extricating the Browns from Cleveland to, or sort of cleaning up the mess from that, and the international efforts that the NFL had back then, so he was a fix-it guy. A lot of owners owed him favors because he was the guy who, you know, strongarmed the city or the county to get money for a stadium. The owners didn't have to get their hands dirty. And so when it came time to appoint a commissioner, he was the logical choice. He knew how the league ran, he was familiar with all the ownership groups. He had dated some of the daughters of some of the owners. You know, he was a very much a known quantity with a very unique resume. What he's done different, Paul Tagliabue put this foundation under the league, the, you know, the sponsorships, the TV money, the revenue sharing. That was all great, that is the foundation. Roger took it to a new level. He has turned the NFL really into a media company, more of a high growth stock. Just to give you one data point, under Paul's leadership of 17 years, the league's revenue basically doubled under Roger. Still going, 19 years at this point, it's tripled. That's a growth stock. And the owners want that. I mean, the owners came in, we were joking earlier about Jerry Jones paying over $100 million. The owners have big bills to pay back, and they are buying teams for multi-billions of dollars predicated on a certain growth rate. And Roger is delivering that.
GR: Well, you know, compared with Jones and Kraft who are 83 and 84, Goodell is still a relatively young 66. I'm wondering about the future here. Who assumes the mantle of the NFL when these few owners leave the scene? Which they're going to do, you know, before too long. Is it going to be Goodell? Are there any other younger dynamic owners out there, who comes to the fore?
KB: Well, let's joke about Jerry for a moment, but I write in the chapter on Jerry Jones, if you take the tour of AT&T Stadium, the $65 owner's tour, you get to see a hologram of Jerry talking about things. So, he may live on digitally.
GR: (laughter)
KB: The only owner in the league who would create a hologram to himself. But anyway, and by the way, I should joke, I mean, it's in the book, but, I went on this tour, and I asked AI Jerry, you know, what do you think of Roger Goodell? And he responded that he thought Roger Staubach was a great quarterback. So, I don't know whether the AI was confused or didn't have Goodell in its brain, but anyway.
GR: (laughter)
KB: So look, both of those teams have their kids involved, Stephen Jones, Charlotte Jones, Jonathan Kraft, they're in good hands. They've been along with their fathers the whole way. Those teams will remain, you know, financially successful. I can't speak for the field. They're very different people. I would say Steven is more like his dad. Jonathan is more analytical, kind of hard driving in a way that Robert has a kind of softer edge, at least publicly. But, you know, there's a bench of very good owners. Clark Hunt in Kansas City is considered a very shrewd financial manager. Fans may not agree, but Jimmy Haslam is becoming quite influential on the financial side in league circles. David Tepper in…
GR: Name the teams that all these people are associated with, not all our listeners will know that.
KB: Forgive me, sure. Jimmy Haslam owns the Cleveland Browns, David Tepper bought the Carolina Panthers, he's a hedge fund mogul. Josh Harris led a group to buy the Washington Commanders, helped push through the entry of private equity money into the league. And then Greg Penner, who's part of the Walmart family, that bought the Denver Broncos. So there's quite a few shrewd owners. And then you have the sort of old guard, the Rooney family in Pittsburgh with the Steelers and the Maras here in New York with the Giants. So, you know, it's not a long bench, but it's a deep bench. And then there's Roger, you know, he has continued to sign contract extensions and the owners are in no rush to replace him. And everybody's guess is he'll work through the next labor agreement and television deals, which will probably end by this decade. So, if anybody wants to keep booing him at the draft, you’ve got 3 or 4 more opportunities.
GR: (laughter) That's good to know. If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and my guest is the New York Times reporter Ken Belson. We have a lot of Buffalo Bills fans in our listening area. Where do the Bills fit in terms of the owners and the things that the team has done?
KB: Well, look, Western New York is, and Buffalo has been one of the smallest markets. I guess Green Bay would be the only other, maybe Jacksonville. So, you know, it hasn't carried its weight financially in league circles. Everything now is big numbers. But Terry Pegula got this stadium built and that'll increase the value of the team, and, you know, all boats rise at that point. Terry hasn't been a terribly active owner, certainly nothing like Jerry Jones and Robert Kraft. You know, he's kind of a, I don’t want to call him a get along owner, but, he, you know, he says his piece, but he's not trying to win the room, if you will. But he did keep the team in Western New York. I know there were a lot of fears about the team going to Toronto at one point. And, you know, a lot of owners, when they want public money and they got 900 million from Erie County and the state, you know, they threaten to leave. They dangle, I don't know, name the city, Portland, Oregon or something like that. They dangle that out there as, hmm I'm thinking about Portland, Oregon. You might even fly out to Portland and have a conversation with the mayor. They never did that. Terry's from western Pennsylvania. I don't think Roger Goodell himself, not that he could singlehandedly do this, I don't think he wants the Bills to leave. I think he has a soft spot for Western New York. So to his credit, he didn't play that game. Now, on the other hand, like every other owner, he's looking for money from fans in personal seat licenses and so forth. There is a section toward the end of the book where you hear from Bill's fans really struggling with what to do. You know, on sort of middle-class incomes, trying to figure out how to pay for it all. And, I would say I've been to almost every NFL market over the years to see games and meet people and so forth. The Bills have, along with probably Green Bay although Green Bay is different, the Bills have probably the most rabid fan base. I mean, you know, when you talk about the city's identity wrapped up in the team, that's Buffalo.And so to the league’s credit, they didn't abandon the city. On the other hand, there's a price to pay for it in the modern economics of the NFL.
GR: ,What are the next frontiers for the NFL in terms of growing in terms of media audience, developing other synergies? You know, Jones is always big on sort of creating new entities and finding synergies. Where do you see the big ones coming in the next few years?
KB: The NFL is already a media company, but you'll just see, you probably if you've heard of or seen the Netflix documentary on Jerry Jones, and I think it's eight parts. That grew out of an alliance with Skydance, big Hollywood studio. And so, yeah, this is very much what they're doing. They're trying to fill in the calendar with NFL content. I hate that word, but that's what it is. You know, the football season itself is only, what, five months long, something like that. So they want it to remain front of mind. It used to be the Super Bowl was over and you just switched to spring training, not anymore. Football continues to be ever present. So you're going to see more media ventures. You saw the ESPN purchase of NFL network, that's going to lead to more media opportunities. And I think you were already seeing the Black Friday game coming up. Amazon paid 150 million for that game a couple of years ago. They're now going to show it globally. Netflix, two Christmas games. So we're going to see more and more of these sort of opportunistic expansions of the media landscape for the NFL. The other thing, I think probably more broadly, and I know people ask a lot about international. The NFL has been very deliberate, it's been 17, 18 years since they first started playing regular season games. We're going to see more of that. Some of this is really necessity. I mean, the NFL is kind of saturated here in America. I mean, 90 of the 100 top shows in television are typically football games. So I don't know how much more they're going to grow the pie in terms of number of fans or percentage of fans. They can certainly charge more, for a product, but, they're looking overseas because they need new fans. And I think that's going to be a new frontier. And then finally, I would say gambling, although, as we know with the NBA scandals, there may be some trimming of things like prop bets and whatever. But the simple fact is, the NFL doesn't actually collect from the handle, doesn't take a percentage of bets. It makes money on selling the data. The game day data, that fuels all those bets. And so they, you know, FanDuel or DraftKings or any of the casino sportsbooks, they pay the NFL for that data feed. And that's really where they're making the bulk of their money, plus the signage and sponsorships.
GR: Interesting. We've only got about a minute left. So this is going to be the lightning part of the round. But I have two questions I want to put to you if I can in this time. So you have to be really quick on this. These are concerns about the future. One is, concern about football and younger players. There's been a lot about this medically last 20 years, it's not good for the brain, it's not good for the body. Do you see that as a major problem for the NFL going forward?
KB:I think if a player died on the field, and we had a pretty darn close call a couple of years ago, that could influence public behavior. I think we're already seeing fewer younger people. I mean, the population is not growing as much and more parents, and I've done numerous stories on this, more parents are putting their kids in baseball and soccer and other sports. So that is a constant worry.
GR: And then the second one is the one you just mentioned, really quick now, soccer. It does seem to me that professional soccer is getting more and more attention. I notice it with my students, they're following these teams I've never even heard of sometimes. So, does football need to be worried about soccer? Does soccer need to be worried about football? What's the future there?
KB: No. American football is truly an American sport. It's tribal, it's made for television, it is dominant. I mean, soccer is chewing away at some of the mine share, but football and the NFL particularly will remain dominant.
GR: Well, that's good to hear. That was Ken Belson. And his new book is titled, "Every Day Is Sunday: How Jerry Jones, Robert Kraft, and Roger Goodell Turned the NFL into a Cultural & Economic Juggernaut". Ken, thanks again for taking the time to talk with me, it was really fascinating.
KB: Yeah. Thanks, Grant, I appreciate it.
GRL You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.
