NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue testified Tuesday and
Wednesday in the St. Louis Convention and Visitors
Commission's (CVC) $130M antitrust lawsuit against the NFL.
On Tuesday, Tagliabue said that neither he nor league
officials had any meetings with the commission, "nor played
any role in terms the Rams and the commission ultimately
reached" regarding the team's relocation fee from Anaheim.
Tagliabue said he only dealt with Rams President John Shaw
in negotiating a $29M relocation fee. Tagliabue added that
he "wrote" the league's nine relocation guidelines and
"conceded that the rule requiring three-fourths approval of
league owners for a team to move could be construed as a
restraint of trade" (POST-DISPATCH, 11/5). Under cross
examination on Wednesday, Tagliabue said that the $20M the
CVC paid to get the Rams went to "low-income" NFL teams to
pay their bills, according to William Lhotka of the ST.
LOUIS POST-DISPATCH. Tagliabue was "questioned for several
hours" by CVC attorney Alan Popkin, "who was trying to show
the jury that the NFL's fee assessments were arbitrary and
part of a pattern of restraint of trade." The trial is
expected to resume on Monday (POST-DISPATCH, 11/6).
