An American classic
More Tagliabue – Who'll be the next commissioner?
The question of which anonymous suit takes Paul Tagliabue's place in the corner office at National Football League headquarters hardly matters, as long as the individual learns the lessons of leadership from the man who will go down as perhaps the greatest American sports commissioner of them all.
Tagliabue, 65, is calling it quits after a 16-year run of nearly incalculable success in which his league became so outrageously popular that its annual spring entry draft is arguably one of the country's five most popular sporting events. Go ahead, check the numbers.
He took over in 1989, when baseball could still declare itself America's pastime with a straight face, and he left that sport so past its time (not to mention mired in labor woes, salary follies and steroid scandals) that any comparison now is laughable.
Never a man of great charisma – he never seemed to care if he was seen as just one of the fans – Tagliabue possessed a remarkable gift of leadership. It should serve as a model for every other league and, if the NFL is to continue to succeed, his successor.
There is no question the next person is being handed a juggernaut, with a labor deal signed through 2011, lucrative media contracts and two dozen new venues. The slightest mistake can change everything.
That, maybe more than anything, is what made Tagliabue great.
No one was better at analyzing small problems and attacking them before they gained momentum. That didn't always make him popular, but it did make him effective.
It also stands in stark contrast to the ineffective stewardship Major League Baseball has endured under Bud Selig, whose sport now faces a monumental cleanup of its image because it tried to ignore its troubles.
When Tagliabue saw drugs – both recreational and performance-enhancing – gaining steam in his league, he worked with the union to set a strong suspension program that even the U.S. Senate complimented. Selig, meanwhile, practiced situational ethics and head-in-the-sand optimism. Baseball is now dealing with a tarnished era, confusion over records and the potential embarrassment of having a known cheat break its most sacred record.
When Tagliabue saw rampant showboating as a threat to turn off the league's more conservative fans, he instituted policies on end-zone dances, taunting and even uniforms. He was ripped for running the "No Fun League," but his players' images are better than the NBA, which is still trying to make up ground.
When Tagliabue analyzed the league's poor record of hiring minorities in leadership positions, he implemented a clear policy that required teams to interview qualified, of-color candidates. While the results were imperfect, it did have some teeth and, at the very least, was a true push by the commissioner in an area where he has only so much power.
No other league has been nearly as bold and decisive.
When Tagliabue determined that decaying stadiums and hostile environments were keeping fans (particularly women and children) from attending games, he worked city by city and franchise by franchise to construct plush, modern and fan-friendly stadiums. The result has been near-sellouts in every town, an improved fan experience and, of course, hundreds of millions of dollars in extra revenue for his owners.
Tagliabue has even been able to leverage a negative into a positive. The lack of a franchise in Los Angeles, the nation's second largest city, is a potential embarrassment for the league and a hole in its television contracts.
But knowing that California is not the right political climate for constructing new stadiums – Tagliabue could never get anything done about substandard stadiums in San Diego, San Francisco and Oakland – he used L.A. as a potential relocation destination to force the hands of cities across the country. The fact that the city has never had a tangible plan hardly mattered; Middle America reacted in fear and up went the new facilities.
When the recent collective bargaining agreement stalled and faced a false deadline, Tagliabue used common sense to push the timetable back and never walked away from the challenge. He used the time to both rally and motivate his owners to get their internal disputes solved before making a strong deal.
It is little coincidence that, while he has overseen labor peace, the other major pro sports leagues have had work stoppages, including baseball canceling a World Series and hockey erasing an entire season. The big problems were solved by attacking the little ones – by never letting the slightest threat be underestimated but never resting on new levels of success and popularity.
The NFL, now so much bigger and grander and more celebrated than when he took over, will get a new leader in July. Who it is may not matter as much as how much they have learned from their predecessor.
