Specter: No hearings on Patriots
While criticizing the NFL's investigation of the Patriots' videotaping procedures, Senator Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) had refrained from asking his colleagues to become involved, but he still left open the possibility of future congressional hearings.
Yet in a meeting with the Philadelphia Daily News editorial board Monday, Specter indicated hearings are no longer an option.
"I'm not going to call for hearings, because the mood is not right and we've got too many other bigger problems to deal with," Specter told the editorial board, according to a transcript provided by Specter's press office.
Specter, who in May had called on the NFL to conduct an independent investigation of the Patriots' videotaping procedures, was unavailable to elaborate on those remarks yesterday.
The NFL has no plans to conduct an independent investigation, feeling its multilayered probe during and after the season was extensive.
Specter has received little public support among senators regarding the issue, with a mix of high-ranking Democrats and Republicans - including Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), and Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) - saying it was best left to the NFL.
Specter previously said that because the NFL has an antitrust exemption, the league has a "very preferred status" in society and he thus felt it had a responsibility to be a role model "for everybody."
In his meeting with the Daily News editorial board, Specter was asked if he had "pulled back" from pursuing the issue.
"Well, I haven't pulled back. There's not much more I can do at this point," Specter said, adding that he felt the issue still needed to "percolate."
Specter touted that his involvement in the issue "exposed a lot," noting that the Patriots' taping was more extensive than the NFL initially had acknowledged.
That is a point of contention, depending on the point of view.
As noted by ESPN.com in a timeline of events regarding "Spygate," Chris Mortensen reported Sept. 14, 2007, that Patriots coach Bill Belichick told NFL commissioner Roger Goodell that the taping of signals went back to 2000.
Yet the NFL never publicly acknowledged the depth of the taping, and at a Feb. 1 press conference two days before Super Bowl XLII, Goodell indicated the Patriots had handed over six tapes - from the 2007 preseason and "primarily from late in the 2006 season." While it might have been unintentional, Goodell was seemingly contributing to the perception that the taping was recent.
Specter, in his meeting with the editorial board, said he now plans to look into another sports-related issue: the public financing of stadiums.
According to the newspaper, Specter also said he's "not interested" in pursuing allegations made by former NBA referee Tim Donaghy that games were fixed - per instructions from the league - to increase television ratings and ticket sales.
Mike Reiss can be reached at mreiss@globe.com.
