PETE ROZELLE : League Faces a Variety of Major Problems, but He Still Remains Commissioner Cool

Pete Rozelle, now in his 25th year as Commissioner Cool, still gives his Carlton 100 that Hollywood hold, that certain Bogie nonchalance. His suit is still lean, clean, and, today, double-breasted green. Acres of ice-white carpet still lead to a long and low desk, above which drawn blinds keep all of Manhattan curious. This is the Office of the Commissioner, and once inside, you can hardly hear chaos clamoring at the door.

In St. Louis, owner Bill Bidwill is making like Cal Worthington. Come see our fine line of St. Louis Cardinals. Have city, will travel.

In New Orleans, the Saints are on the sale rack, $75 million or best offer. Cash and carry.

In Philadelphia, the citizenry just had a loaded Phoenix held to their heads. Their ransom was millions.

In New York, network program directors reserve spots on building ledges as NFL football ratings dip to a five-year low.

In Washington, NFL attorneys--the Hamilton Burgers of their profession--work madly for one final appeal of a $49.3-million suit awarded to Rozelle’s nemesis, L.A. Raiders owner Al Davis, and cross their fingers and hope a $1.32-billion antitrust suit from the rival USFL just goes away.

And all across the nation, NFL owners and fans shiver and wonder what gremlins lurk around the next corner.

But at 410 Park Ave., up on the 13th floor, Pete Rozelle breaks not a bead of sweat. Crisis? What crisis?

“We’ve seen rough times before,” he says.

But even Rozelle, 58, will admit he has never seen times quite like these. For this was the year the mirror cracked on Rozelle, and the broken glass has piled up in the courtrooms, in Congress, on television and in the stands.

Still, Rozelle’s initials aren’t P.R. for nothing, and in an interview with The Times, he went to work on making mountains into molehills, taking on old favorites such as:

The Commissioner and Mr. Davis And now, the Commissioner would like to say a few words about Al Davis, who has, in his time, said a few words about Pete Rozelle, including accusing him of Super Bowl-ticket scalping and trying to sabotage the Raiders’ playoff chances this season. The fiercest Davis attack came after Davis won his antitrust suit.

“Rozelle needs to . . . get out of the courtroom, get out of Congress, get off the tennis courts, get out of the race tracks, get out of the social circles, get out of his vendettas, and be the commissioner again for the league,” Davis said.

Rebuttal?

“Well, I’ve become pretty immune to all that,” Rozelle said. “I think this feud between Al and myself is one-sided. . . . I’ve known him (Davis) since the merger in 1966.

“It’s been tough the lies they’ve told about me; the things (Los Angeles Herald Examiner columnist) Mel Durslag has written about me, especially when I was out there and my father was dying. Those were hard to deal with. A lot of my past is in the Los Angeles area.”

When told of that comment, Durslag was nonplussed. “That’s sort of a low punch to present in that context,” Durslag said. “I had no idea his father was dying at the time. I wrote him a note when I found out and he never acknowledged it. . . . I haven’t lied about him at all. I’ve just tried to say how I felt about his mischief in keeping football out of Los Angeles.”

Said Davis: “I didn’t know at the time his father was dying. That’s malicious to bring it up that way. If I had known, I wouldn’t have said anything at the time. But everything I said about him was still true.”

It has been a marathon feud, but Rozelle is most upset about the latest Davis vitriol. “I think I’ve been to the race track three times this (1984) year,” Rozelle said. “And, as for being on the tennis courts, anyone who has seen me playing knows I haven’t had enough practice. . . . All I can say about the social circle is I’ll stack the people I know in New York up against some of Al’s friends and maybe present business associates. I assume you know the name I’m talking about.”

The name Rozelle is talking about is San Diego millionaire Allen Glick, a one-time Las Vegas gambling figure. Davis was a real-estate partner with Glick in one multimillion dollar deal and their names were also linked through a Public Broadcasting System special on gambling and the NFL last winter.

As for vendettas, Rozelle says that it is Davis’ word, not his. “He prefers that, rather than to say, ‘I’m having a fight with my 27 partners. I’m suing my 27 partners.’ It’s much easier to create an image that there’s a fight between the two of us than to say that.”

But is Rozelle being honest with himself?

Davis says that the NFL’s owners urged Rozelle to settle the case, but Rozelle threatened to quit, so the owners acquiesced. “You know who runs this league,” Davis says. Could it be that Rozelle wanted to beat Davis so badly that he pushed his luck in the courts?

Rozelle bristled at this. “I met in privileged session with the owners right along,” he said. “Between the first and second trial I laid it out to them--with no lobbying involved. ‘What are your feelings about the second trial?’ They all discussed it and they said, ‘We think it’s important enough. Let’s take it all the way.’ ”

They did. They lost. And now at least two or three owners--Miami’s Joe Robbie, Buffalo’s Ralph Wilson, and Washington’s Jack Kent Cooke--are said to grumbling about the $49-million bar tab, the millions in interest accruing daily and the $11 million in legal fees. You’ll forgive them, then, while they hope for one last appeal to the Supreme Court, which has already said once it will not hear the case.

All of which has led to the latest in franchise-flopping fads. . . .

The Commissioner and the Phoenix Phox Trot Taken a look around the league lately?

Baltimore is in Indianapolis. Oakland is in Los Angeles. Philadelphia was quite nearly plunked down in Phoenix. St. Louis owner Bidwill says he is open to persuasion about where he might take his team next. New Orleans’ lease expires this year, Miami’s in 1986, and Houston’s in 1987. The city of Philadelphia got mugged and said, “Thank you,” and the rest of the league is as nervous as a weight-watcher in a House of Pies.

‘My theory is that people turn to sports as they do movies--as an outlet, enjoyment, entertainment. When that entertainment becomes something they read about on the front page or on the editorial page--holdouts, strikes, litigation, drugs--it detracts.’ --PETE ROZELLE Rozelle is not above an I-told-you-so.

“I said when the trial ended that this would cause franchise free agency,” Rozelle says. “Now I’d have to say, while I made a lot of mistakes in estimates, I was certainly right on that one.”

Rozelle says he needs legislation to put an end to the NFL version of the Price is Right. But what the NFL has gotten so far, in a bill from Pennsylvania senator Arlen Specter, is something not quite close.

Specter’s idea would keep owners from vamoosing until they can show three straight years of losses and can show his team’s facilities to be derelict. But Rozelle has predicted that every owner will be losing at least $3 million a year by 1986. This bill, then, is not exactly Rozelle’s fondest dream come true.

What Rozelle wants is legislation that would treat the NFL as one corporation with 28 partners. “We will take the same (antitrust exemptions) as Ford has, as a department store has, as any company has. Our problem comes when they don’t recognize us as a joint enterprise. . . . Just think, if the Raiders went down, the other 27 clubs would have to restock them--without any compensation. If the May Company went down, you wouldn’t see them restocked by The Broadway, I can tell you that. . . . As it stands now, every time we hold a meeting, it could be considered a conspiracy.”

But unless Congress enters stage left, Phoenix will be the most popular vacationing spot in the country for NFL owners seeking a sweeter deal--home or away.

Then again, if the NFL’s television ratings don’t improve, owning an NFL franchise could be as popular as Braniff stock, which brings us to:

The Commissioner and the Case of the Missing TV Sets Since the NFL’s salad year of 1981 when televised football ratings were at an all-time high, football ratings on the three networks have slipped 20%. They are down 8% from last season and that was no boon, either.

The league office scatters the blame, from cable-TV to home-video players to the USFL to the 1982 strike to the Olympics to just plain bad news.

“My theory is that people turn to sports as they do movies--as an outlet, enjoyment, entertainment,” Rozelle says. “When that entertainment becomes something they read about on the front page or on the editorial page--holdouts, strikes, litigation, drugs--it detracts.”

Perhaps, but most football writers aren’t blaming bad news as much as bad theater. They’re calling the grand old game the bland old same and they’re dishing out fix-me-ups as fast as the mailman can bring them. A few favorites:

a) Speed things up (please).

The average NFL game is beginning to threaten Wagnerian opera for duration. This year, it lasted three hours and eight minutes, up 11 minutes from 1978. The rise of the passing game and the fall of the running game is one culprit. Bunching of commercials is another. Too many penalties is a third.

To combat some of it, the league is toying with the idea of starting the game clock at the same time the 30-second clock starts. As things stand, the 30-second clock can be clicking while the game clock isn’t.

“But we do have fewer commercials than the colleges, than all the sports,” Rozelle said. “We have 25 commercials for a three-hour game. The problems arise when a director decides to go heavy with the commercials in the first half, because they’re afraid there won’t be that many opportunities to get them in during the second half.”

b) De-sissify the game. Mass substitution is for presidential cabinets, not for football, and new platoons on every down makes it harder for the average fan to identify with their local heroes.

Who’s your favorite player, Bobby?

“Oh, Bruno Klutz, for sure! He must be the neatest guy in the whole league when it comes to a second-down-and-nickel-package-situation!”

San Francisco Coach Bill Walsh has suggested limiting substitutions to one per series. Rozelle is dubious. He cites a CBS-New York Times survey that found that almost two-thirds of NFL fans do not want any changes made in professional football. And those who did couldn’t agree on what they wanted changed.

c) Glut and more glut. Weekly weekend network doubleheaders. Monday Night Football. Thursday night edition of Monday Night Football. Saturday night edition of Monday Night Football. Exhibition games. USFL. Network college games. Cable college games. Repeats, reruns and tape delays. Enough already!

Whether Rozelle backs all of these or any of these, he needs to do something quick, as his barrel is fast approaching Niagara Falls. The NFL’s current $2.1 billion TV package is set to expire in 1986. Sickly ratings mean a sickly deposit slip at the bank for those who pay his salary.

“That’s what we’re shooting for,” Rozelle said. “We’ve always been able to bring them (the ratings) around in the past, just through luck. We usually have a gang-buster year right before the negotiations (with the networks) begin.”

But, Pete, the way your luck has been running. . . .

Commissioner Cool’s composure is as even as his Manhattan tan. Another lousy headline, another Carlton 100.

“We’ve had our peaks and valleys,” he said. “I’ve seen ‘em for 25 years. Ten years ago, we had three anti-trust suits going at the same time. . . . People were saying football had peaked and we had the World Football League. But we’re still here, aren’t we?”

But how long will Rozelle be here?

His contract takes him to his 65th birthday--at an estimated $1 million a year salary--so the question is not whether the owners would not have him. But at his state of the kingdom address at Super Bowl XVII, Rozelle was asked what would happen if Davis and the Raiders had their way in court. Rozelle answered that he wasn’t sure if he could continue to govern the league the way he had done with such smashing success. And if he couldn’t do that, he might not do it at all.

“We’ll have to see,” he said.

Davis has won, but Commissioner Cool carries on.

“I still feel the exhilaration of being a part of something that an awful lot of people care about,” he said. “Some days are fun. Some days aren’t so fun. Our problems are a lot more difficult to solve when they’re internal. That’s when my job is not as much a fun. But I’ve been working to bring us back. I think we will come back.”

No matter how many packs a day it takes.