Roger Goodell reportedly had a salary of $34.1 million and he didn’t deserve it.
The NFL is a business and it’s a darn lucrative one. For better or for worse, a reason for that is because of NFL commissioner Roger Goodell. It is a multi-billion dollar non-profit organization. Goodell is the man in charge of the NFL so he naturally gets paid as such. How much does he get paid? Reportedly, he rakes in $34.1 million on an annual basis.
BREAKING: Roger Goodell's compensation in 2014 was $34.1 million, according to a tax filing the league filed today.
— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) February 16, 2016
Goodell is in charge of the NFL so it’s hard to argue that he doesn’t deserve that salary. However, does he deserve so much credit for the NFL being the biggest cash cow of all the North American professional sports leagues? Probably not.
It isn’t that difficult to make a huge profit when you’re running the most popular sport in North America. And it’s not like it wasn’t the most popular sport before Goodell took over – it’s been that way for quite some time. Not to mention Goodell has multiple blemishes on his record.
His largest one has a slight chance of going away, but it likely won’t. Goodell overstepped his boundaries during the DeflateGate scandal. He found a way to turn Tom Brady and the New England Patriots into sympathetic figures and made them look like the victims. That takes some impressive incompetence. The Deflate-gate scandal undoubtedly made Patriots owner Robert Kraft livid. Kraft has a ton of influence amongst the owners.
Even with his shortcomings, Goodell will likely remain the commissioner until he either retires or he royally screws up so badly that the owners want him gone. If he has a repeat of the DeflateGate scandal, the latter is plausible.