NFL President Neil Austrian was interviewed by Fox's
James Brown during Sunday's American Bowl between the
Steelers-Bears in Dublin, Ireland. Austrian, asked if
family ownership in the NFL is over and whether corporate
ownership is coming to the NFL: "A lot of people would like
to think that and maybe it is inevitable, yet at the same
time there's been an enormous amount of wealth created in
the last several decades here in this county and you see new
families coming into sports like Wayne Huizenga, Wayne
Weaver, Paul Allen. So I'm not so sure that it really
spells the end of family ownership. It might mean we have a
bunch of new families coming in." Austrian, on issues
facing the NFL: "I think we've really got to solve the labor
issue on a long-term basis so that it works for all the
clubs. Right now it's probably as good a system as you've
got in sports, yet at the same time it may not work at this
point for our low revenue clubs" ("NFL on Fox," 7/27).
IRISH EYES: Sunday's NFL game, the first to be played
in Ireland, drew 30,269. The AP notes in its game report
that attendance was smaller than the 38,000 which attended
the Notre Dame-Navy game in Dublin last year (AP, 7/28).
HALL-OF-FAME: Hall of Fame inductee and Giants
President & co-CEO Wellington Mara was interviewed during
Saturday's "Hall of Fame Game" on ABC. Mara, on the state
of the NFL: "We're in a period of flux. I think we've
suffered greatly by the instability, by the moving of the
franchises. I recognize the reasons that the teams moved
and I don't necessarily condone any one of the individuals,
I just think as a whole it's presented our league in a very
poor light. And I hope that that's over with. I know we
have obligations to both Los Angeles and Cleveland, and I'm
relying on Paul Tagliabue's good judgment to tell us how to
fulfill those obligations" ("Hall of Fame Game," ABC, 7/26).
