NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell is not the league’s highest-paid employee, but he is doing pretty well for himself.
According to the NFL’s IRS Form 990, which the league is required by law to make public, Goodell made $11,554,000 in the fiscal year that ended on March 31, 2011. That’s a significant bump from the previous year, when he made $9.69 million.
But it doesn’t make Goodell the highest-paid league employee: That honor still belongs to NFL Network chief Steve Bornstein, who made $12.2 million. The NFL owners apparently approved that salary for Bornstein on the theory that television salaries are high, and they had to offer something competitive to get someone they trust to run their network.
Other details from the NFL’s 990, via Darren Rovell of CNBC, include the league spending $11.37 million to rent its New York City office space on Park Avenue, $2.69 million licensing software from Microsoft and paying $8.58 million to former Commissioner Paul Tagliabue, mostly in the form of deferred payment and retirement benefits.