Owner's meeting feel

WRITER’S PERSPECTIVE

FORT LAUDERDALE – What is it like attending an NFL owner’s meeting as a reporter?

First, it’s a significant contrast to the day-to-day responsibilities of a football scribe. My personal preference is to write about the Xs and Os of the game, but an owner’s meeting usually turns the focus to more business-related matters, such as television contracts. Instead of the football field, you find yourself in a luxurious hotel like the Ritz-Carlton.

Bill Belichick and his gray hoodie probably would be out of place here.

Unlike waiting on the sidelines for Belichick and Patriots players, attending an owner’s meeting requires waiting outside of a meeting room for some of the sharpest businessmen in the sports world, such as Robert Kraft (Patriots), Jerry Jones (Cowboys), Arthur Blank (Falcons) and Bob McNair (Texans), among others.

Often times, the waits are long. It’s probably similar to the lobby-sitting that goes on at baseball’s winter meetings. You can go three hours waiting for a meeting to adjourn, or hoping that someone you are looking for pops out for a bathroom break and might take a question or two.

It’s probably the only football-related locale that you’ll see reporters from Sports Business Daily, Bloomberg, and the Boston Globe in the same place. For all reporters, one of the important parts of attending meetings like these is the chance to build relationships with those from the business side of the game.

Overall, it is interesting to me how the NFL creates a buzz out of meetings such as these, when in actuality, there wasn’t much tangible news outside of the awarding of a Super Bowl four years away, and the announcement of three television agreements. I believe it is part of what makes the league the powerful force that it has become.