Commissioner Goodell: Good afternoon. Good to see you.
We spent a great deal of time talking about the game itself. We are very excited about the start of the season. It's been a very competitive season and a very exciting season. The measurements we use a lot such as average margin of victory is at 10.07 points per game. That's the second-lowest in our history, so that's a great indicator for us. We also look at the closeness of games, as measured by 7 points or less and that is the highest level ever. We see a lot of excitement, a lot of enthusiasm, a lot of surprises and a lot of, what I would call unpredictable outcomes, and that's a great thing for fans and that's what our focus is: how do we continue to make the game stronger and better for our fans?
This morning we spent a lot of time talking about our Collective Bargaining Agreement. We've reached the halfway point of our CBA - just past the halfway point - and we looked at the CBA to see how it's working from all perspectives. [From] the player's perspective, we think it's working incredibly well and from the owners' standpoint it's working incredibly well and from the fans' standpoint it's working incredibly well. We're seeing what we structured five years ago working very well for all parties. It's leading to a safer game. We think it's leading to more investments with long-term investments in the communities, in stadiums, in facilities that are good for everybody, including the communities.
It's obviously led to increases in compensation. We've seen over a billion dollars go into the cap the past three years, a billion and a half when you include benefits, which are record increases in compensation. So we're seeing great success with our Collective Bargaining Agreement, but it's never perfect and there are things that probably both sides will want to address.
We also spent some time on player health and safety. We had a report from our committee on that. That's a priority for us and we have made significant progress on it. We had an update on our engineering roadmap, as we like to refer to it. We heard from some of the committee members. We also had an update on our search for our Chief Medical Officer and we got some preseason injury data, which I believe you have some of that also.
I'll be happy to take your questions.
Your thoughts on Mark Davis and Las Vegas? Also, given that NFL staff has worked with Oakland for a year, where is Oakland in your view? And a follow-up, Sheldon Adelson is involved, he's a giant casino owner. Is this a scenario you kind of feared?
Goodell: We had presentations from all three of the California teams this morning on the status of their efforts to get stadiums built. We also heard from the Atlanta Falcons on their efforts to get their stadium completed for next season. So that was a normal part of our meeting. As it specifically relates to the Raiders presentation, it was informative. It was factual. The membership had an opportunity to ask questions and the chairman of the committee -- Art Rooney -- made it very clear that this is something that is a significant focus of the stadium committee, has been and will be going forward. There's still a great deal of information we need to gather with respect to the circumstances that we see in Las Vegas, the opportunities and also the challenges. So those are the things that we'll look at through the committee and report back to them maybe as early as December, but more likely later than that.
The Sheldon Adelson question …
That's one of the things that we don't know. That wasn't addressed this morning. I don't know what his role will be, but that's the type of information that we don't have at this point in time. It will be required before the membership is going to vote on this.
Television ratings have been down, and there was a chart presented about how around the election television ratings are always going to take some sort of decline. I would love to know how much of that do you attribute to things other than the election – the idea that there's new media taking eyeballs off of the television and onto other things.
Good question, and it's something that I don't think there's a single reason for it, I really don't. We look at all those factors. Everyone's got theories, you guys have theories, others have theories. We work closely with our network partners. We see tremendous strength in our numbers, but we also know that two primetime games that were seeing the most dramatic decrease went straight up against two very significant debates. Another one of our primetime games on Thursday Night was on the NFL Network as opposed to a network broadcast, which will always get a lower rating.
There are a lot of factors to be considered. We don't make excuses. We look at it and we try to figure out what's changing. You're touching on a point that is significant which is consumer changes in their behavior and the way they consume media. That's something we've been focused on for several years and it's why we've been doing more with Snapchat and Youtube and others. That's why we did our work with Yahoo last year. We have a deal with Twitter to tri-cast our Thursday Night games. We're seeing these changes.
We recognize that network television is still dominant and we believe it's going to be dominant going forward. And it's where the vast majority of our fans view our games. It's a great experience, the advertising market is incredibly strong, and I think that our ratings are something that we'll continue to look at and make sure we're doing everything not just to get them to tune in, but to get them to stay tuned in. That's the issue, that's what we'll work on.
Obviously gaming has been a topic when Vegas comes up. Do you sense that there's maybe a shift in attitude on gambling as a result of fantasy and daily fantasy, and the fact you can do it on your phone and it doesn't necessarily need to be in one place?
That's one of those very broad questions. From my perspective, there clearly are shifts in society and the way people view gambling and the way you view even lotteries. There have been shifts in that and we obviously monitor that. But we still remain very much opposed to legalized gambling on sports, and we think that has an impact on the integrity of our game and that's what we watch. Whether people gamble or not is not necessarily our particular focus. What we want to do is make sure we're doing what's right for the game, and for the NFL, and that's where our focus will remain.
On conducting market research in Oakland and Las Vegas.
Those are things we're going to have to evaluate. We're going to look at the market and we're going to look at what we see as the opportunities. We're going to look at Oakland and we're going to look at every aspect of this to make sure we're making the right decision long-term for the NFL.
Have you been in touch with your league sponsor about the comments made by Coach Belichick about the surface tablet?
I have not. I have been in meetings obviously for the last two days. I know our staff has. We are proud of our relationship with Microsoft. We think they have a great product and they've done a great job in advancing technology into our game and influencing our game. We get a lot of feedback from our coaches on how to continue to make that better. They respond to that and we will continue to do that. It is changing the game. It's changing for the better. They are able to evaluate a great deal more data. We've experimented with video as an example, which is something that the membership has looked at over the last year and will look at again. We're proud of that relationship. Any time you have a new technology coming in there is going to be adoption issues that you are going to have to get through. We think it has been game changing, literally.
How concerned are you about losing the viewers that have been lost during this period for the long haul?
We don't think we've lost viewers. I think when you look at ratings you have to go a little deeper than that. It is viewers but it's also how long they are engaging for. A lot of times people will leave a game for whatever reason -- whether they're going to go to other programming or whether the game isn't that competitive. Those are all factors that happen. As an example, just on the competitive side: while we have very close games overall league wide, we haven't had the closest games in prime time. Last year we did. In 2014, we did. Ratings reflected that in the first five weeks at record levels. These are things that you just have to evaluate individually. We don't dismiss anything. We look at it, we evaluate it, we try to see if we can deal with it.
Do you have any indication on what the impact has been on the ratings and the popularity of the league with relation to the protests to some of the social situations?
No, we don't think that's a factor and our network partners don't either.
Why not? What has been the feedback that you've gotten?
That it's not a factor. It's not having any significant impact on our ratings.
One more thing unrelated to that. There have been a lot of inconsistencies with regard to how some of the celebration, taunting and excessive celebration rules are officiated. Even to the degree that when you compare to 15-yard penalties for a celebration versus a helmet to helmet hit, or whatnot, there is a lack of disparity in terms of what …
What you are really saying if I understand it correctly is not that there are disparities in the way it's being officiated, but that you don't like the rule. [laughing]
Do you think that that's an area where there is further discussion warranted?
The committee looks at this every year. I have been in the league 35 years. I don't think there has been a year where we didn't look at this issue. It comes down to balancing a lot of issues including the professional standards that we want to uphold. Our players are role models and others look at that at the youth level, so that's important for us to hold that standard up, and it's part of being professional. That's one element of it. We have taunting, which is a significant issue. Taunting fouls are up this year. It's probably a combination of making that a point of emphasis, but we look at that as sportsmanship. When somebody taunts someone else, somebody reacts. That can escalate quickly, so those are things that we're really concerned about. We look at it closely. The committee balances those issues. I don't think they are being officiated inconsistently. People may not like the rule. They might not like the line that's been drawn, but we believe it's part of being a professional league.
You've been to Las Vegas, it's such a unique city, what would make the NFL attractive to Las Vegas and vice versa and with that market setting because it is kind of a unique and different kind of a city? What would you be studying in those market studies?
You study everything that we think is important to the long-term support of an NFL franchise. Is there a significant fan base there that would support the team appropriately? Is the stadium economics and the fan experience at the level that we need to be successful there? What is the impact on some of our policies that we need to look at? So, we evaluate it from start to finish, and some of that is market research, some of that is pure analysis, and part of that is just getting in and asking the questions. We have a team of people who have been evaluating some of these issues, that flow of information will come in. There are still things that haven't been resolved that we still need to evaluate also, so it's pretty thorough. It's expansive in the sense of making sure that we consider every aspect when the ownership makes their vote.
What would make Las Vegas an attractive city for the league?
I'm not going to speculate on that. Las Vegas is a city that is known for its entertainment, it's a big city and we'll have to evaluate that in the context of it.
On chances of Oakland retaining the team…
I think Mark has been clear and I think we feel the same way, which is we would love to have the Raiders stay in Oakland. We think that is a positive thing. We've been also pretty clear over the last couple of years that it requires getting long-term resolution to their stadium. We still don't have that solution. Our staff is working with the mayor and officials in the Oakland area to see if there are alternatives out there. But we don't have one yet and I think that is part of the frustration Mark has. This isn't a new issue, as you know, it's been going on for several years and we need to get a resolution for that. Ultimately for the team to be successful it needs a long-term stadium solution.
What kind of appetite do you think the league has for being a development partner in Oakland on that property with the Raiders? The league, as opposed to the team, do you sense that there is some appetite within the league to do that?
I'd be speculating a little bit because there's not a proposal along those lines. I've seen that written, I've heard it discussed, the idea of a developer is going to come in and find a solution. We remain open to any potential solutions that make sense. We're not developers. We have owners that are developers, they do that very effectively on a local level, but I wouldn't exclude any opportunity to try to find a solution in Oakland.
Offensive line play- we've spoken to enough coaches, John Madden said it himself - seems to be on the decline. Is there any solution you can see, perhaps getting more practice time for offensive linemen, or something out there?
I just spoke to John Madden on Monday night for an hour. I had this conversation with him and actually made exactly the opposite point: that offensive line play looks better and he agreed. And so, I don't see that. When you have either injuries or inconsistency on the front line, that's a cohesive group, and when one person is missing that's a difficult thing, and so that group does need time to gel. That often gets better as the season goes along. But you bring the broader point about do we need to evaluate our practice rules? That's something that will be discussed in the context of a collective bargaining agreement that undoubtedly will come up.
Can you give an update on Vontaze Burfict? What made it more of a fine as opposed to a suspension?
I've been here for the last two days so I don't have an update. I saw Jon [Runyan] briefly on Monday but I didn't even speak to him about it. It's something that when I get back, I'll probably get a better sense from Jon. So I don't really have anything to offer at this point.
On considering a developmental league:
We've talked about it. Some of you may have heard we spent a fair amount of time at the meeting on what we call the 2020 plan, which is talking about how we plan for the future and the things we want to accomplish. One of them is obviously the game, and how do we improve the game. A developmental league could be something that we want to do to try to help develop players. We pick up on the rosters from the start of the season to the end of the season, probably three to four hundred players on average. Having those players ready to play as quickly as possible and developed so that their skill set's furthered are all positive things about the long-term future of the game. I particularly have an interest in that and would like to make sure we're evaluating that as something that can help improve the game and improve our players.
You mentioned the CBA at the halfway point and the success of it. It seems both sides agree with that and are there plans for renegotiation talks in the near future, and do you have a sense now of what the issues would be in those talks?
We have had conversations with the union for quite a long period of time -- at least a year -- about various aspects of our collective bargaining agreement and what we can do to improve it. The ability of us both to enter into negotiations and get it extended demonstrated that having a long-term agreement is helpful. It's what leads to the kind of performance that we've seen at least in player compensation and investment in communities. I believe that ultimately it would be a good thing for us to do, but we'll do that when they're ready. I do think we have a very good idea, because we've shared our ideas, and some of the priorities we have with the union. They have given us some of their issues. We're aware of the basic issues, but that's what negotiations are for. We look forward to doing that at the appropriate time. We will be prepared when that comes, whenever it comes. And we'll be prepared for every alternative.
You went pretty deep into the relocation process with all three teams back in January before the Rams were approved to go. So based on that and based on the requirement that teams negotiate in good faith and exhaust their options in their current market before relocation, have the Raiders already met that criteria? And would there be anything that could happen in Oakland that would change their eligibility to move?
As you point out, we did go through this last year. They went through a relocation process when they applied to move to Los Angeles, and to a large extent, it was demonstrated that there wasn't a solution in Oakland. They have continued to try to see if there's a solution there. We have continued our efforts to try to do that. We don't have one at this point. So that is still a very significant issue for us, and would be a factor in the relocation for sure.
So is Mark in any way required to continue communicating with Oakland?
Mark has given his best effort to try to do that. We are engaging also because we want to support the effort. We want to make sure that there's nothing that we haven't missed. You know Mark's expressed his frustration about the lack of progress. We understand that, but we want to be engaged, and we want to help support to see if there's a solution with the officials in Oakland.
- NFL Communications
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