I'm ready this correctly, but if Profootballtalk.com's little throw away line is correct, Raiders CEO Amy Trask may be leaving the organization for, as that publication put it, "A nice NFL front-office job." Read this:
EDDIE LOOKING TO GET BACK IN?
Nancy Gay of the San Francisco Chronicle, citing among other things a forthcoming story from Michael Silver of Sports Illustrated, reports that former 49ers owner Eddie DeBartolo is contemplating the possibility of seizing control of an NFL team and moving it to Los Angeles.
DeBartolo told Silver in March that the Raiders are a potential target, given an ongoing problem with attendance and owner Al Davis' "declining" health. (By the way, we've heard all sorts of rumors and speculation about the health condition of the guy who calls the shots in Oakland, but we've refrained from commenting on the subject out of respect for Davis. . . . And because we don't want to get sued.)
Teaming with former 49ers president Carmen Policy, DeBartolo also has eyeballed the Saints.
Raiders president Amy Trask told Gay in response to the SI story: "This is not a story about the Oakland Raiders being sold. This is not a story about the team relocating. This is a story about two gentlemen, Eddie DeBartolo and Carmen Policy, who clearly are drinking too much of Carmen's recently bottled wine.''
Zing!
"The only look those two are going to get at this team is if they want to watch it on television,'' Trask added.
Double zing! (Hey, this girl could write copy for us if that whole "high-paying NFL front-office job" thing doesn't work out.)
Five years ago, there were rumors that DeBartolo was interested in joining with Outback Steakhouse owners Chris Sullivan and Bob Basham to buy the Tampa Bay Buccaneers from Malcolm Glazer. Though DeBartolo denied any interest in buying the team in a story published on January 24, 2001, he indicated otherwise in an item dated January 27.
"Malcolm Glazer and his family are very astute business people," DeBartolo said, "and all they had to say was that team wasn't for sale. And they did. But if something were to happen, and the Holy Ghost came down and Malcolm said, 'I'd like to sell the team,' would I be interested? Maybe."
But even if DeBartolo could find a team willing to let him buy it, the other members of the Billionaire Boys Club would have to approve the transaction.
We'd be willing to bet the riverboat casino that they won't.
DeBartolo pleaded guilty in 1998 to federal felony charges resulting from his failure to report an alleged extortion attempt by former Louisiana governor Edwin Edwards, in which DeBartolo supposedly handed $400,000 in cash to Edwards in order to help DeBartolo win a riverboat casino license. In 1997, DeBartolo ceded control of the 49ers to his sister, Denise DeBartolo York, after DeBartolo was advised of his impending indictment.
And when DeBartolo signed away his interest in the 49ers to York in March 2000, Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross of the Chronicle wrote that the move occurred after "NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue made it increasingly clear that -- despite DeBartolo's willingness to turn state's evidence against Edwards down in Louisiana -- the league would never let him back into football."
So there's no way, as a practical matter, that DeBartolo would ever get control of an NFL team. There are simply too many other folks out there with the money and the interest.
And without the rap sheet
No comments:
Post a Comment