The Friday night comments from Cowboys owner Jerry Jones regarding the looming disappearance of NFL revenue sharing didn’t immediately make waves, probably because most of the folks who follow the league for a living actually took the weekend off, like normal people do.
But the issue landed in SportsBusiness Daily on Wednesday, and Liz Mullen reports in Thursday’s edition that the league won’t say whether it plans take a few bucks out of Jones’ football cathedral mortgage fund in response to his verbal indiscretion.
NFL spokesman Greg Aiello also told Mullen that Jones wasn’t speaking for the league when he said that the rules regarding the sharing of money among the 32 franchises will change after the current labor deal expires.
“Clubs are advised not to talk about the CBA, but if you do, you are
responsible for what you say,” Aiello
said. He also told Mullen that, if an owner says something damaging to the league’s position,
the owner “would be held accountable and could be fined.”
Reading between the lines, it appears that the league office wasn’t pleased with
Jones’ remarks, which serve only to give the union ammunition for
driving a wedge between owners. It also appears that any penalty would be administered privately, since a public censuring of Jones would serve only to highlight the fact that his comments were regarded as problematic for the league’s bargaining position.