More NFL Finances Released : Trial: Antitrust jury told that owners paid themselves $60 million in salaries from 1987-90.

Last month, when attorneys for the 28 NFL owners reported that halfback Freeman McNeil had been paid $7.1 million for 11 seasons with the New York Jets, the figure impressed the McNeil antitrust case jurors in Minneapolis.

But last week, a witness testified that Philadelphia Eagle owner Norman Braman had paid himself a one-season salary of $7.5 million in 1990.

And since then, the trial hasn’t been the same.

Figures and rumors have been flying, prompting Judge David L. Doty to authorize the release of numerous financial documents Tuesday.

The clubs themselves had provided the various figures--previously only the subject of speculation--during discovery proceedings before the McNeil trial began.

And so, lawyers arguing the landmark case told the eight-woman jury, among other things, that:

--The NFL’s club owners paid themselves $60 million in salaries during a recent four-year stretch, 1987-90.

--Raider owner Al Davis drew a salary of $402,000 in 1990, the first year of the league’s new television contract, but nothing except expense money in 1987-89.

--Ram owner Georgia Frontiere drew $500,000 in 1987 and $500,000 in 1988, but only $50,000 in 1989, and expenses only in 1990.

--A Ram vice president, probably John Shaw, was paid $100,000 in 1987, $225,000 in 1988 and $705,000 in 1989, but expenses only in 1990.

--Another Ram vice president, believed to be Marshall Klein, received $200,000 in 1988, and the same in 1989, although his other salary payments weren’t released.

--In the last year for which coaches’ salaries were available, Dallas’ Jimmy Johnson was the leader at $1.433 million. Second was Miami’s Don Shula at $1.1 million, followed by Denver’s Dan Reeves at $985,000 and Washington’s Joe Gibbs at $902,000.

--At Philadelphia, however, Buddy Ryan was paid a league-low $298,000 by the Eagles, who found $7.5 million for owner Braman.

Said NFL Vice President Joe Browne: “That’s the only money (Braman) has drawn from the Eagles in his seven years as their owner.”

Doty, a federal district judge, and the jurors, who will begin a two-week recess Friday, are trying to decide whether the NFL financial system has discriminated against McNeil and the seven other plaintiffs, all of whom are NFL players.

The players have been forced to work for the owners who drafted them, they said, instead of negotiating with other pro clubs.

“Most Americans are free to work anywhere they want to,” McNeil testified. “But as NFL players, each of us is bound to one employer.”

The NFL’s lawyers countered: Most Americans don’t make an NFL player’s money.

Doty ruled that a public airing of all the financial material at hand was necessary because Stanford economist Roger Noll had been disclosing part of it in testimony this week.

Noll’s point is that actual NFL profits are larger than the league has announced.

According to a league audit, the owners’ profits totaled $116 million in 1990, or about $5.8 million per team.

But Noll, in what he called a “conservative estimate,” testified that annual NFL profits are at least $10 million per team--probably closer to $15 million.

The figures are relevant, he suggested, because the money available for player salaries and other expenses comes out of the total pool.

It was Noll who disclosed Braman’s salary.

One of four economists retained by McNeil’s lawyers, the Stanford professor testified that each pro football owner makes an individual decision whether to count his NFL revenue surplus as profit or as personal salary.

Said Noll: “This is a matter of discretion on the part of the owners, how to take returns from their ownership.”

For example, he said, owner Ralph Wilson of the Buffalo Bills decided to take a $3.5-million salary in 1990, when Phoenix Cardinal owner Bill Bidwill paid himself $2 million.

But owner Lamar Hunt of the Kansas City Chiefs wrote out a personal salary check for only $12,000 for one recent bad year. And San Francisco 49er owner Eddie DeBartolo paid himself nothing.

Instead, DeBartolo, who lives in Youngstown, Ohio, flew to every 49er game in a company jet, Noll said, and charged the flights to the club as an administrative expense.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ Hugh Culverhouse is another NFL owner accepting no salary, according to Noll, who told the jury that in Cincinnati, the late Paul Brown and his children divided $3.9 million in 1987-1990.

In some instances, NFL owners have paid their hired executives more than they have drawn in salary themselves.

In 1989, the Rams’ Shaw was one example, and Kansas City President Carl Peterson’s salary exceeds $1 million on a club whose owner, Hunt, paid himself $12,000 in 1987, $101,000 in 1988, $250,000 in 1989 and $200,000 in 1990.

President Jim Finks makes $1.5 million in New Orleans, General Manager Bobby Beathard $1 million in San Diego, General Manager George Young $441,000 with the New York Giants, and General Manager Bill Polian $296,000 in Buffalo, where owner Wilson put himself down for $3.5 million.

According to NFL spokesman Greg Aiello, however, “Owners’ salaries aren’t the issue. The issue is whether the league’s player salary system is fair, and the testimony so far shows that it is.

“In 1987-90, when Noll said the owners made $50 or $60 million, NFL player payrolls totaled $2.86 billion. Financially, you’d rather be a Joe Montana or Barry Sanders than an NFL owner.”

An NFL chart unveiled at the trial Tuesday indicated that 56% of NFL revenues went to the players last year. In 1987-90, the numbers were 52%, 58%, 57% and 60%.

By contrast, in baseball, the portions going to the players in 1987-90, the NFL said, were 46%, 43%, 47% and 45.%

The McNeil trial is expected to last until mid-August.

PRO FOOTBALL

NFL head coaches’ salaries, based on 1990 income, as reported in team records disclosed Tuesday at the NFL antitrust trial:

Coach, Team Salary Jimmy Johnson, Dallas $1,433,000 Don Shula, Miami 1,100,000 Dan Reeves, Denver 985,000 Joe Gibbs, Washington 902,000 Bill Parcells, N.Y. Giants 775,500 Mike Ditka, Chicago 759,000 Chuck Noll, Pittsburgh 717,000 x-Ray Perkins, Tampa Bay 643,750 Jim Mora, New Orleans 560,000 x-John Robinson, Rams 537,500 Marty Schottenheimer, Kansas City 533,332 Jerry Glanville, Atlanta 517,014 Lindy Infante, Green Bay 493,400 Sam Wyche, Cincinnati 475,000 Raymond Berry, New England 437,500 George Seifert, San Francisco 400,000 Jack Pardee, Houston 390,000 Jerry Burns, Minnesota 385,000 Joe Bugel, Phoenix 374,612 Ron Meyer, Indianapolis 362,000 Bud Carson, Cleveland 341,886 Marv Levy, Buffalo 322,917 Art Shell, Raiders 314,601 Wayne Fontes, Detroit 310,000 Dan Henning, San Diego 299,000 Buddy Ryan, Philadelphia 297,789

New York Jets and Seattle Seahawks information not available; x-1989 income.

FINANCES--BY THE NUMBERS

Some figures from NFL financial documents released Tuesday. All refer to the 1990 season.

BIGGEST BUCKS: Norm Braman, owner, Philadelphia. Salary, $7.5 million.

LITTLE BUCKS: $209, five part-time secretaries, Buffalo.

LITTLEST BUCKS: Tampa Bay, tied with Cincinnati at $9.9 million in expenditures.

BIGGEST BUCKS: San Francisco, operating expenses, $25.69 million.

BANG FOR THE BUCKS (BUCS): San Francisco (14-2), $1,835,000 per win; Cincinnati (8-8), $1,237,500 per win; Tampa Bay (6-10), $1,650,000 per win.

MONEY PER WIN: $1,433,000, Jimmy Johnson’s salary in 1990 after the Cowboys went 1-15 in 1989.

MOST LOANED BY AN OWNER TO HIMSELF: $13.5 million to Robert Irsay , lent by Indianapolis Colts, owned by Robert Irsay.

HOUSING COSTS: $364,000 paid by New Orleans Saints to buy Bum Phillips’ house after they fired him as coach.

BROTHERS IN BUCKS: Marty ($533,332.80) and Kurt ($76,000) Schottenheimer.