NFL team owners have delayed commissioner Roger Goodell’s contract extension because “the overwhelming majority of the NFL’s attention has been diverted to handling the anthem issue,” ESPN’s Adam Schefter writes. The new contract, which has reportedly already been drafted, would extend Goodell’s tenure through 2024.
“The committee still insists Goodell’s deal will be completed,” Schefter reports, “but there is other business that currently is more pressing.”
The exact reasoning for this delay is a little bizarre, as it requires us to believe that the NFL is too busy freaking out about the controversy surrounding “The Star-Spangled Banner” to do anything else. The anthem issue “has become so critical to the league,” Schefter reports, that the NFL’s compensation committee, which is made up of team owners, “spent about only 20 minutes … discussing Goodell’s extension” at Wednesday’s owners meeting. One assumes this group of celebrated job creators should be more effective at managing their time, but these assembled billionaires couldn’t get Roger’s contract in under the wire. Perhaps somebody else had booked the conference room?
There are no details as to what, specifically, the owners plan to do about the anthem controversy, but the issue has “overridden everything,” a league source told Schefter. The owners’ original plan, which was to smile for the cameras and hope people forget about players protesting racial injustice, did not prove successful.
The owners did manage to discuss some non-anthem matters at last week’s meeting, including “making a dramatic shift from paper game tickets to all-digital ticketing” and a decision to hold the 2018 NFL draft in Dallas, but “neither topic received as much attention as the anthem issue.” As a result, Roger Goodell, who made $34.1 million in 2015, may have to wait a few days or even weeks before signing his lucrative extension.
It’s nothing short of tragic. If you would like send flowers and/or monetary donations to Roger during this difficult time, please do so care of the league office: 345 Park Ave, New York, NY 10154.
