Jaguars Owner and NFL Owners' Compensation Committee
member Wayne Weaver said that all team owners "knew about
and approved" Commissioner Paul Tagliabue's $6M total
compensation for the FY ended in March '98, according to
Kaplan & Mullen of the SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL. According to
records filed by the NFL with the IRS, Tagliabue received
$400,000 each from NFLP and NFLE in addition to a base
salary of $2.2M. His deferred compensation from all three
sources was $3M. Kaplan & Mullen write that this
information "has become important" as NFL owners "deal with
allegations" by Raiders Owner Al Davis that Tagliabue's
deferred compensation and that of 61 other NFL execs "was
paid without the approval of a majority" of NFL owners.
Davis "contended" in court documents and in a meeting
earlier this month that only four owners were aware that
Tagliabue received more than $3M in deferred compensation.
Raiders attorney Kenneth Hausman: "Mr. Weaver's statement
that all the owners knew of the three secret compensation
plans and voted to accept them in 1998 is not accurate based
on the evidence I have seen." Weaver added that Davis'
claim "may have been isolated" to the compensation plan
approved in '94. A year-by-year breakdown of compensation
for top NFL execs for the 12 months ended March 31 is also
listed in this week's SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL (12/20 issue).
RAIDERS EYE $800M IN LAWSUIT: In Oakland, Laura Counts
reported that the Raiders "can't seek monetary damages
directly" from the city and Alameda County for the team's
claim that it was "fraudulently induced into signing" a 16-
year lease in Oakland. But the team told city and county
attorneys that it is "seeking" $800M from the Oakland-
Alameda County Coliseum, Inc. -- the board of business execs
who ran the sports complex (OAKLAND TRIBUNE, 12/19).
