Roger Goodell wasn’t the only NFL executive to take a pay cut last year, but the amount other top earners at the league made was always a mystery. Until now.
Because of new disclosure rules for executive pay by the IRS, the NFL revealed the compensation of their top operatives to Daniel Kaplan of the Sports Business Journal. (The information would have become public eventually.) The numbers are eye-opening.
In the fiscal year that ended in March 31, 2009, Goodell earned $9.76 million between bonuses and salary. Here are the next highest salaries in the NFL universe.
Steve Bornstein, head of NFL Media and NFL Network: $7.44 million in total compensation.
Jeff Pash, chief labor negotiator and general counsel: $4.85 million.
Eric Grubman, executive VP who oversees marketing and sponsorships: $4.44 million.
Former Commissioner Paul Tagliabue, outside consultant: $3.3 million.
Joe Browne, executive VP of communications: $1.7 million
Ray Anderson, executive VP of football operations: $1.12 million.
Anthony Noto, COO: $853,000.
A league source tells PFT’s Mike Florio that employees of the 32 teams are bracing for the reaction to these numbers. It’s widely believed that most of the owners had no idea regarding the magnitude of some of these compensation packages. (Robert Kraft is not in this group.)
Perhaps anticipating this, the league sent a memo to every team reminding them that the figures above did not reflect the most recent year.
“All of the above executives received no base salary increase in 2009 and received an annual bonus in April 2009 that was lower than the prior year. These decisions were made at a time when the NFL offered employees buyouts and eliminated other job positions.”
We are very interested to hear the NFLPA’s response to the news.