In 2012, Roger “It’s All About The Fans” Goodell was paid $44.2 million by the NFL. That comes out to $850,000 per week, including paid vacations, plus, I imagine, all expenses. Good work if you can get it.
Still, had Goodell settled for a mere $39.2 million, the NFL could have had $5 million to spend on PSLs — pitched by Goodell as “good investments.”
Oh, wait. Never mind. The NFL’s a not-for-profit organization.
Regardless, one still should be well compensated in a position such as his. He must pretend that the illogical and unreasonable treatment of one’s best customers — their financial abuse until they’re forced out (there’s a sucker bolting every minute) — is a good thing.
And so the Bud Selig/ESPN Sunday night baseball questions are reprised, only Goodell would have to answer based on three nights — Sundays, Mondays and Thursdays.
Does he honestly believe that 8:30 p.m. on school/work nights are a good time to begin NFL games, especially outdoors in November and December in cold climate cities?
Especially, too, given that the top TV market New York/New Jersey teams will be eagerly sought by NBC, ESPN, the NFL Network and now CBS for inclusion in their prime-time games?
Especially, too, given both the Jets and Giants, with Goodell’s blessings and advocacy, became PSL teams?
Has the NFL’s not-for-profit addiction to TV money not created an egregious bait-and-switch here?
Had these PSLs — the triple-banging of expensive must-buy tickets to regular season and exhibition games plus the additional charge to rent one’s seats — been attached to a promise that more and more games would be played at 8:30 p.m., ensuring patrons who stay for the entire game will arrive home well into the next morning, regardless of weather — how brisk would PSL sales been?
As it was, the Jets still couldn’t sell theirs despite bogus claims, stunts and advertisements that Goodell’s office blithely indulged.
And now, in exchange for millions more in TV money, Goodell has led the charge to diminish the value of the obscenely expensive PSLs he claimed would be “good investments.”
“Who needs two to the Jets on the night of Dec. 22?” Or, “Who needs two for the Giants on Thanksgiving night?” “I’ll sell you them at face value, $1,100 for the pair.”
The seller? Well, he has his PSL rent to meet; he signed a long-term lease. Besides, no way he’s going to spend the night sitting in PSL Stadium, waiting to see some football between commercials.
He’ll watch on TV. From home. If he doesn’t fall asleep after three quarters.
Of course, PSL and ticket owners always can hope for the Jets and Giants to have miserable seasons. That would ensure more 1 p.m. Sunday kickoffs — in sunlight, at a logical time. With any luck the Jets and/or Giants could be so bad they’ll be “flexed” out of prime time to 1 p.m.
But then those tickets would be tough to dump, too.
Yep, for $44.2 million for a year’s work, people will say anything, including a warm, embracing, “It’s all about the fans.”
‘In Play’ tells burn victim’s incredible story
If you watch or record anything this week, make it tomorrow night’s second season debut of “In Play With Jimmy Roberts,” Golf Channel’s magazine show, now extended to one-hour.
The featured piece is only peripherally about golf and a golfer — single-digit handicapper Mike Labrie, a 23-year-old from Massachusetts. It primarily is about an extraordinary young man who, when he was 3, was severely burned — over 95 percent of his body — by an exploding water boiler.
His face disfigured, his hands reduced to nubs and stubs, and more than 70 surgeries later, Labrie played competitive baseball, still plays piano and became the top golfer on his high school team.
“I like using my hands, ya know?” he tells Roberts. “They’re mine.”
This is where I can’t do the piece justice. Just do what you can to watch it. Golf Channel, tomorrow at 10 p.m. You’ll see.
As for the golf part, those who still don’t believe that gripping the club too firmly …
Lauer zinger hits bull’s-eye
Friday morning, NBC’s Matt Lauer chatted with Bob Costas, from Sochi, on NBC’s “Today” show — known the last two weeks as the “What Will Be On (tape) Tonight From the Olympics on NBC Show.”
Lauer asked Costas when he’ll leave for home. Costas said, “Monday.”
“On the red-eye?” asked Lauer, who then admitted he had waited the entire interview to hit Costas with that one.
Before the start of USA-Canada hockey Friday, NBC’s Mike Milbury said the team that best “controls its emotions” will have the advantage. Yes, Mike “The Shoe” Milbury said that!
For all the standard NBC Olympics faux dramatics and sappy, maudlin commentary, its hockey play-by-play trio — Doc Emrick, Dave Strader and Kenny Albert — provided clarity and sanity. They well served both Olympics-only viewers and genuine hockey fans. By the way, does Emrick present a “radio call” on TV? Absolutely, but to suggest that he speak less would be like telling Winston Churchill to “keep it short.”
Reader Robert Bogert, The Bronx, writes that he’s disappointed Michael Kay, now that his ESPN NY Radio show is simulcast on YES, doesn’t conclude it by noting that it lasted “an unmanageable 3 hours and 30 minutes.”
Mariners’ manager Lloyd McClendon knocked Yankees coach Kevin Long for saying Robinson Cano wasn’t much interested in running to first. But Long didn’t state an opinion, he spoke a relentless, self-evident fact. Not even strike three bouncing away from the catcher could stir Cano’s interest in running to first.
If ESPN’s self-promotion plan is to make itself easily ridiculed, it’s working. From reader Richard Matzinger: “ESPN’s Adam Schefter reports that Tony Gonzalez will replace Shannon Sharpe and Dan Marino on CBS, according to a CBS press release.”
I didn’t think Sharpe was half bad. On those occasions when he could be understood, he occasionally had a thoughtful point of view. Still, one wonders if CBS knew he had diction issues before it hired him.
ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” Sunday morning takes a hard look at the N.Y. State Athletic Commission as per the Nov. 2 MSG knockout — and subsequent fall into a long coma — of heavyweight and now fully disabled father of three Magomed Abdusalamov. ESPN2 at 9a.m., ESPNews at 10, 11 and noon.
This Comcast-Time Warner merger. Hmmm. Can’t recall ever talking to a satisfied Comcast subscriber. But since when would those who approve such mega corporate marriages care about that?