NEW ORLEANS — John Mara probably isn’t the most popular owner at the NFL meetings here this week.
As co-owner of the only team in the league not to require a payment from its season-ticket holders during the lockout, Mara is making the Giants look good with the public at his fellow owners’ expense.
But that didn’t appear to matter to Mara yesterday as he arrived for the start of meetings that run through tomorrow. Mara said the Giants’ concern for their fans trumped any potential fallout with his brethren.
“We’ve asked an awful lot of our season-ticket holders over the last few years in connection with this new stadium, so it was a gesture that [co-owner] Steve Tisch and I thought was a reasonable one to make,” Mara said of the refusal to set a payment deadline during the league’s first work stoppage in 24 years.
Jets owner Woody Johnson is among the owners requiring just such a payment, but Mara said other owners shouldn’t be compared negatively with the Giants.
“Everybody has their own individual circumstances,” Mara said. “We shouldn’t be singled out. I don’t know that anybody asks what we’ve asked of our ticketholders that last few years.”
Mara was not as gracious towards the players, however, and repeated the league’s stance that the since-decertified NFL Players Association is more interested in litigating than negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement.
Fearing a costly antitrust fight they’re likely to lose, the owners continue to implore the players to settle the lawsuit by returning to the negotiating table.
The players said they are willing to negotiate, but only if the owners begin by contacting the attorneys representing the Giants’ Osi Umenyiora and nine other players suing the league for antitrust violations.
The players expect to be granted an injunction by a federal judge on April 6 that would force the owners to lift the lockout, which prompted Mara to accuse them of stalling.
“Apparently, their intention is to see what happens with this hearing on April 6, which is unfortunate, because we’re ready to bargain right now,” Mara said.
The labor issue has cast a pall over the annual meeting, which has been shortened by a day and won’t feature influential Patriots owner Robert Kraft because of what the team said was a “family medical situation.”
Packers president Mark Murphy said the lockout, barely a week old, already is hampering negotiations by many teams with potential sponsors.
“Sponsorships require lead time, and a lot of the sponsors you’re talking to are worried about this being resolved in time to do something [for the 2011 season],” Murphy said.