Pablo Torre Finds Out
What NFL Owners Don't Want You to Know, with Don Van Natta Jr.
Fri, 07 Feb 2025
It's obvious that the NFL is the most powerful institution in American culture. But far less clear is what the league's power looks like from the inside. Which is why our guest before the Super Bowl is three-time Pulitzer-winner Don Van Natta Jr., whose investigative work for ESPN has offered a rare glimpse at a group that refers to itself as The Membership. Not to mention commissioner Roger Goodell, a human shield who's protected owners from a series of once-catastrophic scandals — and a boardroom that resembles an episode of Succession. Plus: the defenestration of Dan Snyder, the desperation of Bob Kraft and the superpower (and flip phone) of shadow commissioner Jerry Jones. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What insights does Don Van Natta Jr. provide about NFL ownership?
That got the New York Times' attention, got recruited there at the age of 30, and won two Pulitzers there, team Pulitzers, for explanatory journalism about the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in New York.
In other words, just a natural progression to the NFL.
That's right. I always say that covering the CIA, the Pentagon, trying to get secrets out of there prepared me for covering the National Football League.
So there are two kinds of news that I think you need to know about. There's the kind of news that powerful people want you to find out, and then there's the kind that they don't. And Don Van Natta is a master of that second kind of news. Don is currently working on an unauthorized biography of Cowboys owner Jerry Jones. He has famously profiled NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.
And at ESPN, he has investigated pretty much all of the most powerful people in pro football, often with Seth Wickersham. And so during Super Bowl week, when almost everyone else does the first kind of news, what I wanted to do was sit down with Don in Miami to talk about what power looks like inside the single most powerful institution in American culture.
whose status, by the way, was not always this secure. Just over 10 years ago, in fact, the NFL was in crisis mode.
I remember no less than former NBA owner Mark Cuban, at this point, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, echoing many other businessmen and many other thought leaders, like Malcolm Gladwell, for instance, when Cuban declared before a Mavs game, quote, I think the NFL is 10 years away from an implosion. I'm just telling you, pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered, and they're getting hoggy. Just watch.
When you try to take it too far, people turn the other way. I'm just telling you, when you've got a good thing and you get greedy, it always, always, always, always, always turns on you. That is rule number one of business." And I just don't know if there's a worse prediction in our business.
I remember that quote vividly. The NFL, you could argue, has been quite greedy since then. Quite hoggy. Quite hoggy. And all of the metrics are moving in the right direction from ratings to team valuations, which are maybe the most important to owners. But yeah, absolutely. 10 years later, Mark got that one wrong.
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Chapter 2: How did the NFL navigate past crises?
As a character in pop culture, Roger Goodell did not inspire confidence.
No. He was hanging on it, looked at that moment by his fingernails for his job with the way he had mishandled this domestic violence case that became a major national story for weeks. And that's all anybody was talking about during the 2014 season. Correct. And he took every one of those arrows. Nobody talked or very few people.
We did a story that raised questions about the Ravens handling of it and the owner, Steve Bishotti. Yes. But Steve Bishotti took very few arrows. Why? Because Roger took them all. And I know after the fact, after that story, talking to owners, they were proud of Roger. He did what he was hired to do. Why?
Because another slate of games are coming on Sunday or Thursday night, and Americans love their football. DeMora Smith, the former National Football League Players Association executive director said, I'll never forget it because he said it to me over lunch. He said, Americans are addicted to football like it's crack cocaine. And he just said it like it's just a fact.
A better prediction. A better prediction than Mark Cuban. Yeah, exactly.
And it was said actually around that time, Pablo, come to think about 2015, 2016, it was after the Ray Rice autumn.
But there is that thing, though, that he's getting at about what is the product and why is it so addictive?
Yes.
And that speaks to also something that, look, maybe the owners and Goodell get credit for this part, just, you know, the caretaking of said product. But... the violence, the gladiatorial coliseum made modern, that stuff, the tribalism therein, that feels like, yeah, a good hand to inherit.
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Chapter 3: What role does Roger Goodell play in the NFL's power dynamics?
Absolutely. It's bread and circuses. It's even the ugly side of the game. Concussions. You know, what happened at Tua. Yeah. Think of the conversation. This season. Right. That weirdly, though, still enhances the appeal. It is the test of this sort of macro question of all of these scandals didn't stop the juggernaut of the NFL. And will this? Probably not.
The crack cocaine threshold, right? Are you going to actually out-compete crack cocaine? But I do want to get to just these back rooms, right? So you are the number—you and Seth Rickersham have done so much great work taking us behind the locked doors where you should not be. What do you think people misunderstand about the rooms where these decisions are deliberated?
These guys are not, and I say guys because most of the owners are men, are not smart enough to pull off massive conspiracies. I mean, there's just a lot of groupthink when it comes down to it. I mean, look, the National Football League, they call themselves the membership, right? The 32 owners. They're the membership.
It's this very august name for- A country club unlike any other.
It is the hardest and arguably the most gilded club in America. Yes. Hardest to get into.
I would say it is number one and number two is not close.
Absolutely. No doubt about it. However, at its essence, it's really just a trade association of 31 owners and the Green Bay Packers who— Whose ownership is, yes, more democratically oriented. That's exactly—that's right.
They don't have a single overseer in that regard.
But really, they're— They have massive egos, most of these people. They don't like each other.
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Chapter 4: How do NFL owners influence major decisions?
What has been told to me is that there was something personal going on between Bill and Malcolm that was not football related. Kraft publicly said he had nothing to do with it.
You provided the reporting behind the fact that this was not influence, this was also actual business.
It was actual business. It was a way that many people in sports now do of controlling the narrative. Oh, and I get it.
He's not alone. No, everyone's doing it. But him trying to do it spoke to this desperation. Again, the way the Hall of Fame works for people who don't know, every year there's one non-coach, non-player contributor they're called who gets in. And Bob Kraft, owner of the Patriots, the foremost dynasty of our time, chiefs not permitting maybe, he's been trying every which way.
And this book and docu-series was in that vein.
It was because the book was sent by Stacey James, Robert Kraft's longtime PR head, to Hall of Fame voters. Like, this is the actual— Not quite subtle. It's not that subtle. This is the argument for Robert Kraft, for you to vote Robert Kraft in. Those voters didn't know that— Robert Kraft was a sort of secret partner with the author on that book that was very favorable to Robert Kraft.
Also, arguably, possibly minimized the role of Bill Belichick in those dynasty years. It was a Robert Kraft book. And so that didn't sit well. with what I understood with some of the voters. And again, this past fall, Robert Kraft was not selected yet again for the Hall of Fame. It's been, I think, 13 years now that he's been trying to get in.
He stood up at the owners' meeting in Orlando, Pablo, in March of this past year and said... I felt bad that there was so much emphasis on the more controversial and... let's say, challenging situations over the last 20 years.
And made it sound as if he had nothing to do with it. And, well, he owned the copyright to the docuseries, and he had more than a little to do with it.
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Chapter 5: Why is Jerry Jones considered a powerful figure among NFL owners?
A record price at the time.
A record price at the time. And Paul Tagliabue, then the commissioner, introduced Snyder by saying, this is the perfect person to own an NFL franchise. Fast forward 25 years later, and in our story, we quote Tagliabue telling a confidant, Dan Snyder is the worst NFL owner in history. And so how did that happen?
Well, very early on when Snyder first took over the team, he rubbed his fellow owners the wrong way repeatedly. He showed up at one meeting. He was supposed to be there at noon. It was of the broadcast committee. He showed up 10 minutes to five o'clock as everybody's getting ready to leave. He's in a tuxedo. He says, well, I'm going to an event tonight at Lincoln Center.
And he then wastes their time. So they stay for another 40 minutes talking about stuff that didn't matter to them.
Rhymes against the membership.
Crimes against the membership, wasting their time, okay, is a big one. And so when the revelations came out about the toxic workplace culture, about Snyder himself allegedly sexually harassing a woman that worked for him, you would think that that would be enough.
Former team employee Tiffany Johnston leveled the accusations at a hearing on Capitol Hill today.
I learned how to discreetly remove a man's unwanted hand from my thigh at a crowded dinner table at a busy restaurant to avoid a scene. I also learned later that evening how to awkwardly laugh when Dan Snyder aggressively pushed me towards his limo with his hand on my lower back, encouraging me to ride with him to my car.
The only reason Dan Snyder removed his hand from my back and stopped pushing me towards his limo was because his attorney intervened and said, Dan, Dan, this is a bad idea. A very bad idea, Dan.
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Chapter 6: What makes the NFL's financial landscape unique?
No.
I mean, even just to the actual exit in which he is actively trying to avoid... right?
He's like, he's on the run. He's on the run. So the last night when he's closing the deal, which we just reported, Seth Wickersham and I just a couple of weeks ago, he still doesn't want to give up his beloved team. Even though the deal is done, he has an agreement to sell it to Josh Harris and his fellow investors for a record $6.05 billion. In the middle of the night, Snyder is holding on to his
checking account banking information and won't turn it over. And in the days leading up to it, there was a thought of, well, maybe we can say that Snyder was drunk when a lot of these things happened. They were coming up with all of these reasons at the 11th hour to try to persuade people that he could keep the team. Think of the damage he did to the team.
Think of the anger of the fan base and his fellow partners.
There was literal sewage flowing out of the building.
Yes, that's right.
Again, metaphors made quite concrete. And it was Joe Gibbs. Right, right, right.
The hero of the Redskins who won three Super Bowls, who Snyder himself hired to be a coach back in 2003, who actually had to come and say to Snyder, it's time. And because Gibbs was a hero of Snyder, I mean, Gibbs is the childhood icon. Childhood icon is the reason that finally Dan Snyder turned over the keys and went off to London and his super yacht somewhere in Europe.
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Chapter 7: How has the perception of the NFL changed over time?
It's great to be with you, Pablo. Thank you. See you in 10 years.
Pablo Torre Finds Out is produced by Walter Abaroma, Ryan Cortez, Sam Dawig, Juan Galindo, Patrick Kim, Neely Lohman, Rob McRae, Rachel Miller Howard, Carl Scott, Matt Sullivan, Claire Taylor, Chris Tuminello, and Juliet Warren. Our studio engineering by RG Systems. Our sound design by NGW Post. Our theme song, as always, is by John Bravo. And we will talk to you next time.