The NFL Has Two Significant Problems

St. Louis’ lawsuit and Gruden cloud the NFL.’s future.

These should be the days of wine and roses for the National Football League. The business has billions of dollars’ worth of television deals guaranteed through 2033. The worst of the COVID-19 pandemic seems to be behind the league in that stadiums are filled with people again. The league and the players have a long-term labor agreement. And the league is in talks with three German cities, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt and Munich, to host a regular season game in 2022 or 2023. The league is wrapping up its London portion of the 2021 schedule with a Miami Dolphins versus the Jacksonville Jaguars matchup. But with all of the positive news around the NFL there are two significant issues that could cause the league problems.

The city of St. Louis is proceeding with a lawsuit wanting to know the details of Stan Kroenke’s business move taking his franchise from St. Louis to the Los Angeles market. And the city wants to see all the financial details behind the move and a judge said he would like to see those details. Then there is the Jon Gruden problem. Someone in the NFL’s orbit decided to leak details of Gruden’s emails to former Washington General Manager Bruce Allen in an attempt to embarrass Gruden. That mission was accomplished but it opens up many questions. The NFL which does research on hirees somehow missed this. Pandora’s box is open here. With whom did Gruden also correspond? How did the Walt Disney Company, Gruden’s employer during the time Gruden was sending disparaging emails to people, also not know what was going on? People talk and yet no one knew about the emails? The NFL appears to want to shut the door on the Gruden email problem. The NFL is successful in sweeping away problems like concussion issues. Can the league make Gruden disappear?

Evan Weiner’s books are available at iTunes – https://books.apple.com/us/author/evan-weiner/id595575191

FILE – In this Sept. 19, 2021, file photo, Las Vegas Raiders head coach Jon Gruden meets with the media following an NFL football game against the Pittsburgh Steelers in Pittsburgh. Gruden is out as coach of the Raiders after emails he sent before being hired in 2018 contained racist, homophobic and misogynistic comments. . (AP Photo/Don Wright, File)