The Kevin Sheehan Show - Did Snyder Skim Scam?

Episode Date: April 4, 2022

Kevin talked Final 4 to start and then had AJ Perez/Front Office Sports on the show to talk about his report over the weekend of allegations that Washington skimmed ticket revenue that should've gone to the league. Howard Gutman jumped on to share his thoughts on the same topic. Kevin finished up with the sad news that longtime WUSA-TV 9 reporter Bruce Johnson passed away over the weekend.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You don't want it. You don't need it. But you're going to get it anyway. The Kevin Cheon Show. Here's Kevin. It'll take a while. They're going down the stretch. They're going to run after 10.

Inside 30 overall. Love. Top of the key. Oh! I'm the luxury. What a game that was Saturday night between Carolina and Duke. Rarely, if ever,

does a game of that magnitude with the hype surrounding it live up to that hype? but that one did. It nearly exceeded it. I'll get to the final four here shortly. During the final four, however, there was another big story that dropped this one again

from front office sports, A.J. Perez, getting more specific as to what the financial impropriety that was alleged in front of the House Reform and Oversight Committee, and the report was specifically that someone had alleged in front of Congress that Washington was skimming off the top of the 40% of the ticket revenue, which by NFL bylaws is paid back to the league. I didn't know that, actually.

So you take in 100% of the ticket revenue, you keep 60% of it. 40% goes back to the league to be dispersed among all 32 teams. And the report was that Washington's been skimming off the top of that. that 40%. So they've been sending them less, sending less back to the league than the 40%. A.J. Perez, who wrote that story for front office sports, is going to join us next. You'll hear from him. And then my good friend Howard Gutman will join us and we'll get his thoughts on that as well. I've got a few thoughts on that, which I'll get to here in a moment. But first, Ben Standing just came out with a story. And part of that story is that Ron Reve,

Rivera tells the athletic, our good friend Ben Stand to get the athletic, that no teams have reached out to Washington about a possible trade for Terry McLorn. And quote, we wouldn't entertain it, closed quote, anyway. So those of you that maybe read about D.K. Metcalf being available over the weekend that Seattle was shopping him, even though Jeremy Fowler from ESPN shot that down. at least based on what Ron Rivera says, nobody's reached out to Washington and they wouldn't entertain it. Anyway, Ben had a really good story this morning. He always does. But this one was really about the wide receiver market and Terry McClorn's contract extension. And one of the other quotes that he had from Ron Rivera last week regarding an extension for Terry McLorn is that he said, quote, I think the biggest thing is just telling everybody, patience, we've got plenty of time,

closed quote. Yeah, they do, but man, there's been a lot of wide receiver activity. Hasn't there been? I mean, the Adams and Hill trades, the big money for obviously Payne and Hill off of those trades, the big money for a guy like Christian Kirk, Godwin, you know, Mike Williams, etc. There's just been a lot of wide receiver activity. Seahawks GM John Schneider. Ben had this quote in his story. Quote, Schneider said, I was talking to my buddies about it the other night and we were like, holy shit, man, it is what it is now, right? This is the market. We'll get to that when we get to it. There is a bit of, whoa, then you've got to figure it out. Okay, where's the cap going? What's it going to look like? How do you build your team? We do that every day, close quote. But he was referring to just the

nuttiness around the wide receivers in particular. And then there was another quote that I wanted to read in Ben's story. And it's about a league exec weighing in on Terry McLaren's value. Here it is. This from a prominent agent not affiliated with Terry McLaren, quote, whether you think he's worth it, he's been a number one receiver. If Terry is the most productive receiver for the Washington commanders, then he's going to command wide receiver one money, closed quote. Well,

that's a given, right? You know, that is an absolute given that he's going to get wide receiver one money. The issue is how high does he go up in wide receiver one money? Washington can tag Terry McClure next year. By the way, over the cap, checks, according to Ben's story, the 2023 wide receiver tag to be at 20.1 million. That's actually not the average of the top five right now after the Adams and the Hill deals were done. So I'm not sure where that number comes from the average of the top five is actually closer to 24 million. But anyway, you know, Rivera said we're mapping things out as an organization. We're prepared for all of that stuff.

He also said, by the way, there's a quote that, I love Ron. I do, but sometimes he kind of states the obvious here. And talking about Carson Wentz's $28.3 million towards the salary cap for next year, which is the sixth highest among starting quarterbacks next year. He said, quote, what's interesting and people got to understand, when you add a quarterback, especially Carson with his situation and his cap impact, we had to reset. but we haven't forgotten about what our priorities are as far as our football team is concerned. Yeah, of course. You know, part of the resetting was, sorry, Matt Ionitis, we got to release you. Sorry, Eric Flowers, we got to release you. You know, part of that was the reset.

Well, we all understood that when we saw it. You're taking on that whole $28.3 million cap hit, and that's going to impact what you're able to do here in this offset. season. You know, if they were as high on Carson Wentz as they claim they are talking about him being a multi-year answer, well, then they would have restructured the deal to keep Matt Ionitis and keep Eric Flowers. Maybe not, I don't, maybe not both of them. Maybe they didn't want either one of them. But they would have restructured Wentz at this point to create more space in general. Anyway, Ben's always got some really, really good information in his stories.

But the news, really, more than anything, was nobody's called about Terry McClearn, and we wouldn't entertain trading him anyway. So, on the front office report from Saturday, we're going to talk to A.J. Perez, you're going to hear everything he has and more. I recorded this interview with him, so I already know what you're going to hear, and you're going to hear more than what you read in the report from him. But let me just begin with this. When I read this on Saturday, the first thing I did is I tweeted out, man, if they get Snyder on this, this is like the equivalent of getting Al Capone on tax evasion. Obviously, most of you understand the thought there, and that is with, you know, the sexual harassment allegations and the misogynes, and the misogyn.

workplace stuff and the bullying and the intimidation and all the horrific stuff that we've heard and they haven't gotten them on that wouldn't it be ironic if they got them on skimming you know maybe a million bucks you know million and a half bucks off the top of the ticket revenue owed to the league each year keep in mind they basically get a check for like 300 million dollars plus from the television deal which leads me to this um i'm not skeptical at all about the reporting. I believe that there was somebody, and we'll get to that somebody's name here in a moment because Daniel Kaplan from The Athletic was on the radio show this morning and wrote about it. I'm not skeptical about the reporting that the House Oversight and Reform Committee has

heard from somebody who is alleged financial impropriety, and even specifically that the financial malfeasance was they were skimming off the top of what they owed the league in ticket revenue. I'm just skeptical that the team did it, and I'm skeptical because the math just doesn't add up for me. Now, they've done bad and a lot worse for a lot less. I understand they're capable with their impulsivity and their lack of, you know, sort of good decision making of making some really horrific decisions for not a lot of money. I mean, remember the suing of the grant. I mean, remember the suing of the grandmother, the season ticket holder, which they netted like $40,000 or whatever it was, I mean, for hideous public relations.

Anyway, if you do the math on this, and this is the allegation that they're skimming off the top, and in essence, he's cheating his 31 partners, the other 31 owners, which, if true, yes, that could really be a problem for him, you know, because it's, first of all, it's easier to prove than say a hand on a thigh underneath a table at a meeting and you're cheating your other 31 partners but Tommy always says and he's used this expression for years is the juice really worth the squeeze well do the simple arithmetic on this Washington generates with their poor ticket sales second worst in the league last year in the year before. They generate roughly $40 million in average annual ticket sales to their games,

much lower than most of the other teams in the league. But it's at around $40 million. If we think this happened last year or the year before recently, you know, it's $40 million. And the years before that, it wasn't a lot more because ticket sales weren't great those years either. They've really been in decline in major times. decline from a ticket sales standpoint since 2015, roughly, 2016, really following the 2017 season, it really started to fall apart. But anyway, if it's $40 million in annual ticket revenue that the team generates,

40% of that due back to the league. It's actually net of the expenses associated with selling the tickets, but let's just go with a flat 40%. means that they would owe the league in a given year, roughly $16 million, which then, by the way, gets dispersed among all 32 teams. Washington's getting money back from all the other 31 teams that are doing the same thing. But anyway, if you consider the possibility

that they were skimming off the 40%, so let's just say the 16 million, they weren't sending $16 million to the league. They were skimming 10% off that number, 1.6 million, because you skim much more than that, it becomes kind of obvious. For $1.6 million a year, would you really risk, you know, cheating your other 31 partners and perhaps the punishment or, you know, the reaction that your 31 partners

would have to you for $1.6 million, it's peanuts to them. So that makes me skeptical of the allegation. Again, not of the reporting, but of the specific allegation. Again, they're capable of doing dumbass shit. We know that. They've been doing that for years. But wow. And then, you know, I've learned a couple of things today, even after I recorded these interviews with AJ Perez and with Howard Gutman that you're going to hear. First of all, these audits that the NFL does on things like ticket revenue, the 40% of the ticket revenue that's owed to the league. Those audits are done like every three to four years. And so, you know, they come in and those audits are specifically done to make sure that the league is.

getting back the appropriate amount of revenue. The teams obviously audit themselves for tax purposes every year. The league comes in every three to four years to audit the teams. And I was told that, you know, this is a specific and a very important part of the audit process to make sure that the league is getting back the correct amount from the teams, from their ticket sales. Nothing else, by the way that they sell, you know, concessions, parking, all of the other revenues, corporate sponsorship revenue. None of that actually applies here. It's just 40% of the ticket sales and not even all tickets apply.

But I was told these audits are done every three to four years, and that's a real important part of the audit. And then what typically happens at the end of these audits is that the teams are given the number that what they call. call they have to true up on. It's a true up number. It's like actually after auditing, you guys owe us X amount. And then they true up. And the average amount when, you know, let's just say an audit's done every three years. And then the league does the audit. And then they go back to each individual team and they'll say, you know what? This is what we found. You owe us X amount more. And the average

amount of what teams typically owe when they true up at the end of this audit every three years is like $400,000. And that Washington's number in the last audit that was done was considerably less than that. So the league audited them and the number that they owed after the audit was much less than the league average. I was told that from a very reliable source. I was also told that the gentleman that Daniel Kaplan wrote about this morning, who was the actual whistleblower, if you will.

That's probably the wrong term in this case. But the person who alleged these financial improprieties in front of Congress was a gentleman by the name of Jason Friedman, Daniel Kaplan, the business reporter for the athletic wrote that Jason Friedman, a 24-year ticketing employee for the commanders, whose employment the team terminated in 2020, testified in the past two weeks before the House Oversight and Reform Committee and alleged financial malfeasance at his former team, three sources said. Kaplan then writes, his secret testimony appeared to trigger stories last week that the committee, which is already investigating the commander's culture, would now probe the alleged

financial improprieties and an allegation that commander's owner Dan Snyder had failed to share ticket revenue with his peers as required by the NFL. However, this is the Kaplan story. He came on the radio show with me this morning and reiterated all of this. However, Friedman supplied no evidence to back up his claims, one of the sources said, and it's not clear if he held a senior enough position to have access to the types of records that would back up those assertions, which have sparked renewed speculation about whether the NFL would force Snyder out. By the way, Friedman is represented by Lisa Banks, the lawyer who also represents over 40 women who have leveled charges of sexual harassment against the team.

Well, if Jason Friedman's name sounds familiar to you, Jason Freeman is the gentleman who corroborated one of Tiffany Johnston's two allegations. Not the allegation of Dan Snyder's hand being placed on her thigh underneath the table at a business meeting. But what happened later on that evening, he corroborated her story that she was nudged or pushed

by Dan Snyder into his limousine to give her a ride to her car. He wrote that letter, corroborated that story with the House Oversight and Rims. Reform Committee, and with Mary Jo White, the woman who was investigating specifically on behalf of the league, the Tiffany Johnston allegations. So, Jason Friedman is that person. Jason Friedman was with the organization for 24 years and was terminated in 2020. And from what I am told, you know, he was part of

kind of the house cleaning that took place when sort of the new business regime entered. Jason Wright and all of the people that, you know, he hired to change that whole side of the building. You know, they've been cleaning house for a while now on that stuff. And he was one of the first to go. I think it was, you know, I had someone a source tell me that, you know, there were a couple of them that were very obvious to Jason Wright and his team early on had to go, that they were really a part of kind of the old way of doing business, that they didn't want to be a part of the new way of doing business.

So I bring it up because there's obviously the possibility that he may have an axe to grind. He may hold a grudge. Who knows? Look, nobody wants this more than I do. I'm with all of you. I hope one of these things sticks, and I hope the league forces, you know, has the vote and forces them out.

I just am a little bit skeptical about this stuff right now. Now, it doesn't mean that by the time you listen to this podcast, there won't be more. And I think you're going to really enjoy the AJ Perez interview because he says there's more. But that's coming up here in a few minutes. Let me switch subjects quickly to the final. for. What a game Carolina Duke was. It was, you know, 20 plus lead changes, tie after tie,

big shot after big shot. Carolina wins the game. And the bottom line in all of this is that Carolina in the last month just had two wins that rank right up there, if you ask any North Carolina fan, with any of the championships that they've ever won. And they've won six of them. They're going for number seven tonight. Beating Duke in Kay's final game at Cameron Indoor was what I was told by a Chapel Hill Carolina friend of mine as thrilling as any win he could ever remember. The final four win probably even trumps that. Did you see the celebration in New Orleans? Did you see the throngs, the thousands celebrating on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill? This was a massive win for Carolina. This was less unexpected than the first one that when they were an 11-point underdog,

they were a mere four-point underdog on Saturday night. But wow, what a game. I mean, Caleb Love and RJ Davis were so good for Carolina. That back court, you know, combining for 46 points. And by the way, between the two of them, they played 40 and 36 minutes respectively. The shots love hit in the second half, the floaters, the drives to the bucket, the mid-range, the long range. He ended up with 28. Davis was sensational in the first half, you know, ended up with 18. And then, you know, Baycott again, 21 rebounds. And he went out with that, you know, ankle injury late in the game, came back in,

21 rebounds following up on his 22 rebounds in their Elite 8 win against St. Peters. 43 rebounds in his last two games in a 40-minute college basketball game. That's pretty hard. 11 points, 21 rebounds for Baycott. His ankle was definitely, you saw, you know, anybody that's ever rolled an ankle before, you know how painful that is primarily the next day. But I would expect him to go tonight. I thought the biggest mistake Duke made,

I thought Bancaro should have taken more shots. He was 8 of 17 at 20 points 10 rebounds. To me, it really looked like for most of the game, they could not guard him. I thought that he should have been the go-to guy on a lot of those possessions. And I think he should have ended up with, you know, seven to eight more shots. And if he hits another four to five of them because he's unguardable or he gets to the free throw line, they're in better shape. You know, the foul trouble to Williams, the foul trouble to John obviously didn't help Duke at all. But to me, Bancaro was 8 of 17.

He was 2 for 4 from the free throw line, ended up with 20 and 10 in the game, two block shots also. I just think that he looked like the one guy on the floor more than anybody else on either team that could not be stopped from getting to the rim. and I thought he should have been the focal point on every possession. You know, Kay complained a little bit about some of the missed free throws. Mark Williams missed two big ones. Well, you know, Brady Manick missed three free throws in the final two and a half minutes of that game. Huge free throws he missed. Carolina was 17 of 24.

Duke was 12 of 20 in the game. The only thing missing from the game was overtime or a buzzer beating last possession shot. Carolina 1 by 4. I was actually a little bit surprised on the final possession down 8177. The final shot of the game was put up long range by Trevor Keels. And the rebound, RJ Davis came down with the rebound with three and a half seconds left and Duke just let him dribble out the clock. I don't know. I mean, it's a four point game, three and a half seconds to go. That's still two possession. Even if he comes down and makes both free throws, it's still two possessions.

And I just hate when that happens. I just never, you know, it's one thing if it's a six-point lead or a 10-10, eight-point lead, but it's a four-point lead, and it's not one second. It's three and a half seconds after the miss. But anyway, the clock ran out, and then the celebration by Carolina ensued on the floor. And that's what I wanted to get to next. There was a lot of criticism of Duke players not hanging around and going through the handshake line and they didn't. Kay did give him credit. He sat there and not only did he shake Hubert Davis's

hands and some of the assistants that were there, but he waited for the players to come back from their celebration. I'm not going to criticize the Duke players for not being in that line. There are so many shots of the celebration by the Carolina players when the final horn goes off, and they're celebrating on the court for a minute, minute and a half. It's a lot. It's a lot. some point the other team's okay to turn around and say let them have their celebration let's you know we're not waiting around we're out of here we're not we're going to sit here and wait for you know three minutes until they're done celebrating on the floor for a handshake line you know it's just like when a court gets stormed you know you typically don't have the handshake line you try to get to the locker

room not that the court was stormed but what in on tv anyway it was really an incredible atmosphere i mean that place was packed 70,000 at the Caesar's Superdome in New Orleans. And it was just an outstanding game. And most of you know this as a longtime Maryland person, Maryland fan, Maryland alum, lifelong Maryland basketball guy. You know, it's right up there with the love that I've had previously for the Redskins. And, you know, that love, that love, That rooting passion has certainly diminished in recent years. But anyway, I just loved it. I mean, if you're a longtime ACC fan

and you've been on the wrong end of a bad whistle or a tough loss to Duke, the win at Cameron Indoor, you know, at the beginning of last month and the win here by Caroline in the Final Four, it just was sort of just an incredible way for Kay's career. to come to an end with two losses to his arch rival. We had Mark Allery on the radio show on Friday, and he said there's a lot of on-edge nervousness

because the floor is so low. It would be the worst loss ever to follow up the loss in the regular season finale with a loss to your arch rival in the final four. And it happened. I did not think Duke played a tight game at all. I didn't think they were tight in the game. But, you know, I want to say at the same time, and I've said this over the years, and some of you are like, oh, man, geez, such a Maryland, you know, Homer complainer,

and, you know, so jealous of Duke. Yeah, there is a lot of jealousy of Duke. But there's a lot of respect for Duke, too. But you have to understand for all the other ACC teams. And in many ways, Maryland more than any other, because we were always this, you know, Northern Outpost, treated very much like, you know, the red-headed stepchild of the league. And, you know, a lot of those painful losses over the years came at the hands of Coach K and Duke. Hell, one of the Duke losses came before Coach K, the 1980 ACC tournament final when Buck Williams was undercut by Kenny Dinnard on an Albert King

shot with two seconds to go down one and Buck Williams goes up for the easy tip-in and Kenny Dunard completely takes Buck out from underneath and there's no call. Maryland was always on the short end of a lot of that stuff to Carolina for years too. But man, I can feel for the Carolina fan base. I can only imagine how satisfying it is and the last month has been. And it makes tonight's final against Kansas really anti-climactic, I think. I think if you told a Carolina fan before the weekend started, hey, you're going to beat Duke but lose to Kansas.

Will you take it right now? They'd probably take it. I think Carolina's got a good chance tonight. Baycott's got to be healthy. It's a four-point line. I didn't really love either game Saturday. I told you I liked Villanova a little bit. I didn't, you know, play it.

And I don't really like the game tonight. I really don't. If you forced me, I think I'd take it. the underdog or maybe take Carolina on a small money line bet. But I don't love the game either way. I'm looking forward to watching it, definitely. But I don't have a really good feel for it. The first semi-final game Saturday, I mean, my God, did Kansas shoot the lights out of it?

I mean, look, Villanova went in that game, undermanned without Justin Moore. But Kansas just shot lights out. They were 13 of 24 from behind the arc. They shot 54% from the floor for the game. And Agbaji was, you know, their first team, All-American, six of seven behind the arc. Six of his first six in the game. I mean, Villanova made a couple of runs.

I thought Colin Gillespie was great. I thought his competitiveness was off the charts. I thought Brandon Slater was great for Villanova. How about three Paul the sixth players in the final four? Incredible. But all of those players are gone now. and now it's Kansas versus North Carolina for the national championship tonight. Okay, when we come back, we'll talk to A.J. Perez and then Howard Gutman after that.

We'll get to those two interviews right after these words from a few of our sponsors. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast. Rate us and review us, please, on Apple and Spotify. All right, the big news from over the weekend was reported by A.J. Perez. AJ is the senior reporter for front office sports, but he has been with USA Today and Fox, CBS Sports, New Jersey.com. You can follow AJ on Twitter at by AJ Perez. We talked about the report, AJ, that you had the other day that talked about more of, in specificity, the financial improprieties that Congress was looking into. The two books that were, perhaps being kept.

But then you dropped a lot more specifically on Saturday night, right during the final four, in fact, that created a lot of response, I'm sure, for you. And certainly in the community of Washington football fans that I'm always communicating with as well. Everybody wanted to know more about this story. Is it true? I'll start with letting you talk about specifically what you reported on. Saturday afternoon, Saturday evening? Yeah, well, the

utter the NFL bylaws, this is all part of the CBA, as well, some of this is, that you're have to share 40% of the net attendance. So there are some exceptions to PSLs and sometimes luxury suites get waivers, but basically 40%

of the, of the, say, the managers have a home game. They get to keep 60% of the net revenue, 40% of the net revenue has to go to the league, the league that disperses that money to the visiting teams. And we reported, we reported, I know you're right. I started reporting this. I had eclings of this on Friday.

I had more confirmation on Saturday than got more and more confirmation later Saturday. So I was writing the most of the day, and my editors, like, are we going to go to this or this now? I'm like, yeah, what the heck? What do what happens? And I did not expect it to take off as it did between the two final four games. But it did. And it was, you know, and it's kind of life.

It's kind of had a lot of legs. But, yeah, so there was somebody who testified to this committee, and actually did more than testifying. There was some information handed over as well. That claim that the team was holding back some of that 40%. We know it looks like it was multiple seasons. We don't know exactly how long it run. We don't know who authorized it.

Definitely don't know for sure that Dan Snyder had any. part of this, but I think that's going to be part of this investigation. It is part of this investigation, and the House Oversight Committee is continuing to look into this. Okay, you said a couple of things there, and you answered a couple of future questions, but I'll probably re-ask them anyway. So bear with me. So this person that gave Congress this information, it was reported earlier this morning, and you know about this report because we talked about it right before we started, and I actually had this gentleman, and Daniel Kaplan on my radio show this morning. Daniel is the business reporter for the athletic.

He reported that the person that supplied all the information that's created the recent reporting from you in the Washington Post was Jason Friedman, a 24-year ticketing employee of the commanders. A lot of people listening to this right now will remember that Jason Friedman was the one who wrote the letter to Congress to corroborate Tiffany Johnston's allegation. not both allegations, but the one allegation about being nudged or shoved or, you know, swayed or or influenced into Dan Snyder's limousine. He did not corroborate the story of the hand on her thigh, which she was her other allegation in her, in her discussion in that roundtable day back on February 3rd. But Friedman's testimony, which Kaplan writes triggered all of these stories, including yours. he wrote that Friedman, according to his sources, supplied no evidence to back up his claims. And it's not clear if he held a senior enough position to have access to the types of records that would back up the assertions.

So I'll start with this. Do you know that it was Jason Friedman or was it beyond Friedman or somebody else that was the person that brought this information with respect to financial and proprietorship? to the House Oversight and Reform Committee? I can't, yeah. Well, it was basically, we're going, yeah, it was, Jason Freeman was my, the person who I knew that testified. I know there were a couple others that I also know that have, that have not been mentioned in any stories.

But, yeah, Jason Freeman was, was there. He was the person I kind of referred to it. He was referenced by the GOP statement. Right. But my sources said that there was information turned over. And I can't get into exactly what. And I have no idea of what it all entails. But I was told that it was fairly substantial.

And to the point where that it's hard to be even – I know his testimony happened days ago. And I don't even know if the committee – they do a lot of different investigations at once. I don't even know if the committee has gone through all of it that that freedmen provided. Okay. That's why I – so that's kind of why I knew this is coming. I because my – Kaplan and I talk to the same people a lot of the time. I knew I knew this was coming.

I knew that my report was going to be questioned. But here's the thing. This was all – what these other sources are relying on are the deposition – the testimony from the deposition that was taken. It was basically a transcript of what Freedman said. what was turned over is not on that transcript. It was not even referenced. So that you have to, that's kind of part of this whole thing. You have to kind of parse some stuff.

Yeah, and let me make sure that I'm clear on this. You know, and I said this on the radio show this morning, the post reporting and your reporting, I mean that the House Oversight Committee received information that alleges that the, you know, the commanders kept ticket revenue. There's nothing that Kaplan said this morning. that would dispute that that, you know, information was there. It's just that he had sort of the response from a source that said that there was an evidence.

And what you're saying is that there was evidence that was handed over by Friedman. You also just suggested that perhaps more than Friedman would have information with respect to this, let's just call it for the lack of a better description right now, scheme. Are they going to be asked to come? forward? I mean, I've talked to people to committee have it, it hasn't. And from what I've

went from what I've obtained, it's, uh, there's, it doesn't point back to Snyder. None of this goes up, you know, it's,

you know, but there's, there's other things that went on in that ticket office and other parts of the organization that don't happen anywhere else in the NFL. I can, I could say that with fair, a good, a good degree of certainty.

Um, and, uh, from there, it's, uh, it's, is this going to,

you know, this rise the level of a crime, no idea. I mean, they were so early on. I haven't seen anything that anybody's turned over to the committee. Oh, that's not, yeah. I see, I haven't seen everything, I shall say, if that's switched over to the committee. But from what I have seen,

this is going outside of what was turned over by Friedman because I have no idea exactly what it was. But I've seen stuff that went down, that's troubling. Was it troubling enough to get Snyder in trouble? I don't know. You know, the, the, we're still kind of early on in this kind of new part of this investigation. And the, and so we really don't know exactly where it's going to lead. Some of these financial things take it's so long the track down.

This is so interesting. It's like, as I'm listening to you talk, I'm trying to write down things that you're saying because it creates more questions for me anyway. And I'm not so, and I don't know if you, are going to be able to provide the answers or not. But when you say there are things that went on in that ticket office that didn't go on anywhere else, are you implying that it's more than just perhaps skimming off the top of the 40% owed back to the league? Yeah. I mean, there's just like there's season ticket. I can't get into it right now because

I'm still chasing it, but there's information provided to me that that that kind of laid out how some how some ticket season ticket holders were were uh... well i can't really say more until my lawyers talked about it but yeah i need to talk to my lawyers at i mean my are my lawyers at my office right before i uh sure well i mean i very but it's it's it was nothing

i would say nothing it was not sexual sexual harassment wise was nothing like that it was it was it was about numbers and about it was about accounting um and i can't say more until my lawyers and i talk about I heard in my next story, so I want to get ahead of myself. Okay. Well, you also just said that, and I want to make sure I heard this correctly, that none of it necessarily points back to Snyder directly.

Is that what you said? Yes. Yeah. I mean, there's so far, and that's why we, on Saturday, I don't think Saturday was in the story until a fifth or six paragraph. It's none of this as far, as far as my reporting, I'm not saying what was given to the oversight committee, connect Snyder to it very possible.

But for my reporting, I cannot say with certainty that Snyder even had knowledge of this, let alone directed it. But I only have a small sliver information that the Oversight Committee has. Okay, so we're talking to A.J. Perez, he's been on, you know, he's been at the forefront

here over the last couple of days, the reporting from front office sports. And so, you know, as I'm trying to summarize as we're going through, this, you know, it is perhaps more than just skimming off the 40%, that there is more than perhaps Daniel Kaplan at the athletic that was turned over in the form of evidence by Jason Friedman, at least one of the people that has spoken to it. There are others that potentially will or can speak to this. Here's something that wasn't covered in your report, and maybe it's because you don't

have the answer, but I'm curious. Because I think the math exercise, let me back up. First of all, like most lifelong fans, like perhaps 99.5% of them, I'm rooting for all of this to be true. You know, I want this 22.5 year nightmare to end. And when I saw your story on Saturday, that was the first time in a long time that I've read anything where I said, if he's cheating the. other 31 partners, this could really be it.

But at the same time, doing just simple back of the envelope math, it's like, okay, 40% of, because you put what Green Bay's overall gross per year was, and it was like 77 million. So, you know, given Washington's attendance is probably a little more than half of Green Bay's, at least in the last year, let's just call it 40 million. 40% of that is 16. if you're skimming, is that 10%? You know, let's say it's 20%, and it's 3.2 million.

That's peanuts. And that's, that, I was, and so, for me, it's like, look, we know they're stupid, and we know they do a lot of stupid things and impulsive things. I mean, they sued, you know, a 75-year-old grandmother season ticket holder for crying out loud. I have a story on that.

I have a story on that. I would have sued her to. This is the hilarious thing about, this report him over the last two weeks. I'm hearing things I debunk and make Claire look good. Okay. Including that grandmother lawsuit. It's like I talked to people, I'm like, wow, I probably would have sued her too.

Okay. And I just, it's like, so it's like something, I'm trying to be fair. And I've talked to everybody I can for the last two or two weeks before the owner's meetings and after. That was one of my little nuggets there. It was one of the drops. Well, let me just say without knowing anything about the suing, of the grandmother as long as we're on that subject.

I would say that, you know, I think somehow they ended up winning the case for like $40,000 or something like that, whatever it was. I forget what the number was. It's years now since that. Well, she was in bankruptcy, so she had that protection. Okay, so they didn't get dime one of it, but what they did get was a ton of shitty publicity from it. Oh, yeah, yeah, it was not good for PR at all.

Yeah, so maybe she deserved to get sued, but actually doing it. it may not have been, you know, the best decision. They're impulsive. They've been that way over the years. But I don't want to get into that. Doing the back of the envelope math on what they could have possibly been skimming, am I in the neighborhood? Like, this seems like peanuts.

Why would they do it? It's a couple, I mean, if you look at the overall revenue, I think it's $200 million a year your team does from the national TV package. It's 300 million plus. from the TV dollars, isn't it? Three out of now, yeah. That kicks in, yeah, the next one's going to be kicking in in July, August. Right.

Yeah, so it's going to go up. So that, we're talking about 1% of that. It's less than that. Probably less than that. That's way less than that. So you're looking at maybe a few hundred thousand dollars per season. Now, if how long this went on, you know, and I know how they did it from what my sources tell me it wasn't a wholesale.

They weren't skimming every game. They weren't skimming. I mean, it wasn't, according to my sources, allegedly, they weren't skimming every game. They would use certain big games. And those big games appear to be when the Eagles and the Cowboys coming down, because that's when the ticket demand goes up. So whenever a team with a big road presence, this is when they were doing it. And it was kind of, it was not the cross-the-board thing.

It was actually very targeted. And they had, and I don't know who ordered it. And this is all alleged. I don't know how much they took in every single time and how many, how long this ran. I do know how it worked. I just don't want to burn my sources, but I do know how they did it. Well, I mean, what you're saying leads me to believe that it's one of two things. Like it's underreporting the actual gate, which would be one way to do it, right?

Is to underreport the actual tickets, you know, sold. and by the way, the irony of the Dallas and Philadelphia games is that it's mostly road fans anyway at those games here over the last couple of years. By the way, I lost my train of thought because the question that I wanted to ask was, how long have they been doing this? We have no idea. I don't know. It's got multiple seasons. I do know kind of a time frame. Unfortunately, one of the executives who was there at the time that we did his. LinkedIn, so I don't know. That happened yesterday. I don't want to say who.

But, you know, I've been reaching out so many people and Ruth got around and some people are hiding. So that we don't know how long it went on. We don't know how much money it took in. We don't know, you know, who ordered it yet. You know, this is all, I don't know.

This is because I don't know. It doesn't mean Congress. Okay. That's fine. I mean, if it's recently, then we're talking about a much lower gate number, you know. And by the way, you set a couple of hundred thousand dollars, which is even less than what I was doing,

which wasn't significant either. But let's just go with, you know, a million dollars a year is somehow if they were pulling off this scheme, you know, even if it's for the last, even if it's for every year, and there would have been no reason for him to do this, you know, when they were making money hand over fist for the first 10, 12 years.

So it's probably a more recent, phenomena. It's really, it ultimately is peanuts, but they're either underreporting the gate if they pulled it off, or they're just legitimately skimming off the reported gate. Now, how does that get by, you know, the auditors, or legitimate auditors, E&Y, Pricewaterhouse, whoever they use, they use big, big auditors. Yeah, BDO is the big one that they use. But, yeah, so Ernst Young and others are involved, too. So, yeah, it's like, where there are two audit every year the NFL teams have to do at the end of their fiscal year and it varies by team that or they leak sends in people through BDO or instant whatever they

then they check the books they're there for a few days at Ashburn and whatever the funny thing is the ticket office is at FedEx so this so that's a separate audit so at the the NFL bylaws also call for an audit of the ticket and so that's the whole thing so not only are the financials of of the team vetted every single year, audited every year. So are these tickets, ticket sales. So I don't know. I mean, we've seen auditing firms get things wrong going back to Bernie Madoff.

So there's, you know, there's always, there's always, like, room, you know, you're like, you know, like, some person has been telling me, and it's like we don't already know. When I send my taxes off to my CPA, I estimate certain things. I could ask, you know, that may, and if my CPA doesn't fail, like they do have receipts for this, you know, they take your word for it. No, it works a lot differently to the NFL. You have to provide a lot more information than me to my tax guy.

But, you know, I think there's, you know, there's always room to kind of, there's always room for, you know, things to go wrong during the process. Yeah, as my longtime radio partner and part-time podcast partner, Tom Levero pointed out to me last week, he's like, I mean, Enron had Arthur Anderson auditing them, you know, so it, it, It does happen. So let me back up a little bit, because your initial report before the Saturday report talked about two sets of books. Explain. Oh, that was basically, looks like it was a reference to what Friedman testified to.

I think that initially, this was kind of, I had that, and that was, it looks like it was basically about this whole, what Friedman's testimony was to, the committee, keeping one book for the NFL, one book for... Got it. Okay. With respect to the 40% story. That's what it looks like. Okay. Yeah, but there's also... But there's the people outside of the ticket office who testified closer to the hierarchy of the team that could have had some other testimony as well.

I don't know exactly what that was. Because one of the first thoughts that I had before your story on Saturday about, you know, the skimming off the ticket revenue was somehow this goes back to the purchasing of the minority shares from Fred Smith and Dwight Sharr and Bob Rothman, the $875 million worth of 40% of equity. And maybe in the process there, they, you know, in the disclosure of financial information to settle on a price, maybe they provided them, you know, bad information. That's what I thought. Does any of this have to do with that, do you think? I think a lot of, I mean, the debt issue I wrote about on Thursday is a concern amongst some.

But that, and that goes back to him getting the debt waiver a little over now, like 13 months ago almost, to buy out the 30% cost them nearly a billion dollars. He had a financial, Dan said I had a financial, a good chunk of that. So that, so there's always that. I mean, I think that a lot of, there's going to be, and they were disgruntled. had, they were, you know, there was legal actions. There was arbitration going on with, you know, NFL media, NFL media arbitration, NFL, like, sanction arbitration before the, before they were, the debt waiver was agreed to, and the center bought them out.

So there's probably still some ill will there. And I don't think, you know, I don't think the three had a clear picture of what, what, about any of this. I don't think they, you know, they, for my sources, Snyder kept them, gave them information when, when requested, but they may not have had the full financial picture for some of the stuff. And they, you know, they were suing him at the time. They dropped those lawsuits after their shares were purchased for, you know, the $875 million, putting it at, you know, roughly a $2.2 billion valuation, which, you know, when you're selling minority shares, they're going to be worth a lot less than, you know, if you're buying majority shares.

So you may not have the answer to this, but why is the House Oversight Committee moving from primarily an investigation into sexual harassment and everything else associated with that over the last year and a half, the Wilkinson investigation, etc., which was basically sparked by the, you know, the Gruden Bruce Allen emails and whomever leaked to those initially. to the journal and then to the New York Times. It's kind of ironic. Like, I don't think we'd be talking about any of this if that hadn't happened. And wouldn't it be incredible if Snyder was the leak? I mean, I don't know if he is or isn't, but there's some dots that get connected there. But anyway, I digress. Why are they getting into this?

I mean, why, I mean, why, if Jason Friedman and others say, well, you know, you asked me about, you know, Tiffany Johnston's allegations, but, you know, get a load of this. Like, why is that within their purview? It's all within the NFL has an antitrust exemption. It's had it for decades. Right. And so whenever, you know, so it's major league baseball. And so in other sports.

So whenever something like, you know, not to sound harsh, but this is going to get media attention, anything, anything when it comes to, you know, this team. And obviously the horror, the horrors have been detailed to Washington Post. and other reports about what went on, especially towards women in the organization. You know, that's very important, and I think they can switch, and at any time they can alter their investigation. Now, they haven't, so far have issues to be as far as I can tell, to get any more information on the financial side of it. Can they?

Can they? Yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, they can. And they could even, whatever they find, in theory, they could forward any anything any any legalities to the department of justice yeah right refer the case but it's like we have a clement for line of congress many years ago so that could happen but i don't we're so far away you know from that at least from what i can tell now what i have you know and what i know is a small part of what congress is so and i think that's the same for all reports this this community does a very good job of keeping information siloed um

And the fact that I knew 10 days ago about some of the stuff was pretty amazing. I was walking on doors a couple weeks ago. So I had to over Capitol Hill. So I kind of knew what was going on a little bit, but there's still so much going to come out. Last question, I think. You know, you've got to run. I know. Well, then it will be the last question.

So what's your gut on where this goes? Because you've already said that you're not sure, and perhaps it doesn't tie back directly to Snyder. It probably gets lost in, you know, the CFO's office or some accountant's office. You know, where is this headed? If there's documentation, if there's, here's the things. Dan Thiner never had an email, corporate email, never used email. None of those, those, there's to be the emails that people have

are normally linked back that way to Snyder. that makes it harder. You know, if he did order anything, and there's no proof right now that he did, you know, how do you prove that? That's going to be tough. But if it's, if there's, you know, I could see them, you know, going after subpoena and subpoenaing using their spina power, I'm sure, which would, I can guarantee you, Dan would fight, that more information related to this.

If they find the information turned over from Friedman and his testimony and whatever he turned over, credible, you know, that's the next step. And I think there's other executives, former executives, who are going to be interviewed. If I'm getting new information, I'm sure, you know, Congresses as well. All right. Let's cut to the chase here, because this is what people really want to know from people like you who are talking to lots of different people. Anything that you're reporting, anything that you're working on, will it ultimately get him or not? No. I mean, right now, I've talked, Mike Floreo and I have different, they talk to different owners.

I don't see it as right now. As you mentioned earlier, if it's a small percentage, will they just be fine? I mean, if, you know, regardless of Dan ordered or not, if it indeed happened, you did,

you did hold back funds, so you get fined. I don't think they'll lose, maybe, you'd lose draftics. I don't see any of this as of now. They would likely would not have gotten rid of Jerry Richardson. Jerry Richardson sold during the headache.

There is, you know, with the thumb dunk that they would force them out as the Panthers owner. Looking back now, the people I've talked to these last few days, they don't even think Richardson was thrown out. Once you're an NFL owner, an NFL owner for life, typically you've got to do a lot, and it's never happened to the modern NFL. So that puts Goodell in a bad position because he needs 24 votes to get Dan out.

And while I think Florio's, and I don't want to doubt who's reporting, Boyo thinks that it's, you know, who remains reporting with the death mail on Sunday, that's heading that direction. I just don't, it's going to take a lot to get there. And as of right now, if this proves out even, I don't even know. If Dan, if there's a smoking gun and Dan ordered it, which we don't know, for sure, you don't know at all.

And I don't have any inkling that Dan ordered this. If he did, you know, that can get the ball rolling, but still, it's just going to take a lot. Thank you for doing this, AJ. appreciate it. No problem. AJ Perez, everybody, senior reporter for front office sports. At by A.J. Perez, I would follow him on Twitter because it certainly sounds like he's working on this story from a lot of different fronts, and perhaps there's more to come, perhaps even

by the time you listen to this podcast. I don't know, man. For me, I just, In listening to AJ and reading Daniel Kaplan earlier this morning and having him on the radio show, and then just understanding that if it's just about the skimming of the ticket revenue, is that really, you know, he said a couple hundred thousand dollars, even if it's a million bucks, you know, a year, is that going to be enough to get three quarters of a vote to vote them out, especially if he claims, hey, this was, you know, certainly I had, you know, CEO and I was the overseer of all of this, but, you know, just like with the sexual harassment stuff, I was kind of a, you know, a passive owner. I mean, he's been continuing to make that claim of being kind of this absentee owner, you know,

which, as I've said in the past, you know, they really struggle with kind of the calendar math. He likes to act like he's been an absentee owner over the last, you know, 10 years when Bruce, Bruce came in as to sort of pass the buck to Bruce. But most of the sexual harassment stuff is pre-Bruce when Dan was very much involved on a day-to-day basis. And who really believes that he's been, you know, an absentee owner? Certainly, RG3, Dwayne Haskins, draft night, et cetera, would be proof to the contrary. Anyway, we'll see.

Howard Gutman. I want to get Howard's thoughts on this. He'll join us next right after these words from a few of our sponsors. Howard Gutman is our guest now. Howard's one of my favorite people to have conversations with. Many of you have really enjoyed him in the past when he's on with us. He, of course, was Barack Obama's ambassador to Belgium for many years, longtime D.C. attorney and now a frequent contributor to the Kevin Sheehan Show podcast.

which we love. And you and I were texting back and forth since Saturday night on this, and I said, just come on the show. So I have updated you on the Daniel Kaplan story from The Athletic and the interview that I just did with A.J. Perez. I'm just going to let you take it and run with it, and then we'll go from there. Your reaction to all of the reports over the last few days.

So, Kevin, first of all, I'd love to have the movie rights between sex and financial fraud and the politics of Washington. It's a great story. The problem is you can't make a movie without knowing the ending. And the ending might be a lot of disappointment for those listeners who would hope the ending led to the end of Dan Snyder. Because this one, sexual harassment, we got kind of all around it. There was a horrible, horrible atmosphere in the club.

but we never got to the Danny himself, you know, quite crossing a line with an individual. Then we saw Jerry Jones and others had their problems. So it looks like it moved on. Two sets of books, getting a little more spy novel here and skimming. But when you step back, you've got to be at least skeptical. We'd have to see more. So where does this come from? Lisa Banks is a fabulous lawyer.

If I had something done wrong with me, I would go to the Katzen Bank's law firm and see if they could pound the opposition for as long and as hard as they could until they screamed uncle and wrote a huge check and were shown to be the wrong people. But she has a stable of clients united by the fact that they all feel they were wrong by the Redskinned organization and Dan Snyder. and each one now kind of remembers what they can remember and offers up. Maybe this helps and maybe that helps. So one of her clients, Jason Friedman, is a male. We don't know that he's ever had a sexual harassment allegation against him, but that he felt probably mistreated as an employee, or maybe that he got terminated for cooperating in some of these sexual harassment investigations,

but he has solidly been on the Lisa Banks and her client's side. He is a client, again, Stan Snyder. He's the person who says, I saw Dan put his hand on Tiffany Johnson's back, leading her to the limousine. So Jason now, he was in ticket sales. He was in customer relations and ticket sales through 2020, and he was terminated. And by the way, I know nothing about the person, but on his business. LinkedIn, he's had a consulting position since, but he doesn't seem currently employed. And he now is a plaintiff in the lawsuit and said, obviously, that there's something wrong with the reporting

of the ticket revenues, two sets of books and some shenanigans. That's kind of what we know. We know the Republican Council on the House Oversight Committee said this is just a disgruntled employee, nothing here. So we now know there's two sides of the story. And what could it be? It could be any of a continuum. I doubt Jason Friedman's making something up at a whole cost. People don't really do that because it doesn't get far. I doubt, I really doubt Dan Snyder was waking up and saying, I wonder if I could keep an extra $100,000 or million dollars at the expense of the NFL and risk my hundreds of million, my $4.5 billion franchise because I've skimmed $100,000 or a million or $5 million. Not the Danny style.

Doesn't make sense. And how do you get away with that without Bruce Allen knowing or Jason Wright knowing? So not likely there. If that were true, if what Jason Friedman were saying were true, that someone was waking up at night, sticking, you know, the receipts in the rooftop, cutting the register tape and coming up with two sets of books, Jason Wright would have been following the Brian Lafamina, Damon Jones Express out of town. He would have been gone the minute he heard that because that would be the end. And by now you'd see something at the NFL.

So I doubt it's that. So what's it likely to be? Are there different ways of reporting receipts and tickets? Are there two sets of books? Are there three sets of books? That wouldn't surprise me. There can be books for reporting to the league. There can be books for reporting to the IRS.

There can be books for reporting to minority partners. That all depends on the terms of your agreements. What do you get to deduct is what's of relevance to the IRS. What's the league formula is of relevance to the league? and what's the agreement with the minority partners would be of relevance there. And I suspect Jason Freeman knows about that. And then the question is how, let's use this word, how aggressive was Danny compared to other owners in reporting his revenues to the league

and what deductions exist? And how fair was he in the audit process? because I can tell you one thing, the place he will get in trouble is if the documents he showed to the annual audits of his figures for the league are different than the documents he would now claim are the right odds because he was just aggressive. But if he didn't tell them he was being aggressive or they didn't see the figures, they would have some trouble. Yeah, I think I agree with all of that. Now, A.J. Perez suggested that, you know, there is more, that people have more information, and there's more coming about practices in their ticket office that weren't done anywhere else in the league. And, you know, he wasn't at liberty to really talk about that, but it kind of sounded like that could be, you know, the next wave of stories, perhaps.

even though his belief was that, and he said it multiple times, you know, his reporting at this point doesn't have any of it pointing back to actual, you know, to Dan Snyder, that it essentially gets caught up in accounting in the CFO's office and that's where, you know, it perhaps ends. So, A, what else could be, you know, a ticket practice that is much different than the rest of the league that could get him in trouble? that's A, then B, I kind of have this sense that Dan, who's claimed absentee owner multiple times,

which, you know, of course, isn't true, you know, if something even comes of this, that it would be kind of minor in terms of overall value, even though it is, you know, it is, you know, you could describe it as cheating his other 31 partners, but it just seems like it would be another situation, it might lead to another fine. But anyway, what do you think? Yeah, go ahead. Let me take the two of them. Let's do the second one first, which is, does this stop with a CFO or is it just a ticket practice and it doesn't get to Danny or if it does it, it's a fine for the club?

I'm not, I don't think that's likely. If the CFO is going to make an aggressive judgment on how to report this, that's something that he likely will review with the CFO is going to make an aggressive judgment on how to report this, that's something that's something that he likely will review with Danny. I agree with that. If only because the CFO wants credit for how much you got to save the club. Sure, sure. Why would the CFO come up with a smart interpretation and not get the credit?

Because Danny, if you only see the bottom line, just thinks they sold more tickets for the like. Well, unless the CFO was working on some sort of personal incentive, that could be one of the reasons. But go ahead. Yeah, you'd have a lot of trouble if your CFO, who's in charge of the accuracy of your financial reporting, had personal compensation based on how well he could do that reporting. That would be its own financial violation, I assure you're sure. So, Danny's probably involved, but then the question is, what kind of things can there be? And I'd love to now know, and I'm sure the league knows this, but is checking.

So there are rules about revenue, and there can be different components of revenue. It's forced parking, and it may be when they sell the season tickets in packages. Are they attributing certain of these to things that are cost versus revenue? So you might pay family of six package, three hot dogs, a ticket, and this. Or in your Skybox, it can include the food and the like. There are more issues of, is this a revenue from the game? And is there an expense that is set off? And I suspect there are endless rules in the league about interpreting every one of these, but we know it just from the other rules in the league.

As soon as there's a rule about how long you have to hold possession before you go out of bounds, someone makes a kind of catch that defies the rule, and they can't figure it out again. Well, the same with their financial rules. So is there something where, Danny, either because of how they charge particular groups, how they charge their season tickets or charge particular groups or group sales, Is there something where he says, you know, this was for the pregame promotion. This was for the, you get free boots with your trip as opposed to revenue from the game. Yeah, like I'm listening to you and I'm also thinking of other things.

One of the real criticisms we've all heard in this market from people who've been season ticket holders. You know, I'm talking about people who I know that are, you know, have owned, tickets through their corporation, big bulk seats, suites, you know, club seats. And then people who have just had a couple, you know, in the 400 section, the incredibly aggressive ticket selling to both existing customers into new customers. And, you know, whether or not they cross the line in misrepresenting in their sales process. I mean, I'm not, you know, about to say that it's Purdue Pharma saying that OxyContin isn't addictive or something like that. but we know that, you know, they have been super aggressive.

I mean, the stories you've heard over the years is just how many times various people get called and the pitches that they make and the, you know, the borderline threats that are made. I mean, I'm wondering if it has something to do with their aggressive ticket selling, too. Perhaps that wouldn't speak to any sort of two-book system or skimming off the top of revenue. The other thing that Perez said was that it's his information that this was done on sort of an ad hoc basis. Like it would be done for big games like Dallas or Philadelphia, but maybe not done for other games, you know, almost indicating this was like a game-by-game thing. That would be surprising to me if that's how the reporting was handled.

But anyway. That would be surprising because it would indicate that they know they're doing something wrong. it would be a lot better if they took the policy that of a particular seat category 15% doesn't go into revenue than if they did it when it really mattered but not otherwise. That would hurt them a lot. And as to aggressive seat selling, remember, I'm sure Dan and the CFO are aggressive, but this is a league of aggressive people. Tampa Bay this year, Kevin, if you and I want to buy a season ticket for Tampa Bay this year,

we can't buy just one. If you want season tickets at the Buccaneers this year, you have to commit for two years because if you want to see Brady's last year, they're going to sell next year when you've got maybe Gilbert Grape or whoever their quarterback will be next year. That's a big Gary Gilbert.

Gary Gilbert, right? So they're leveraging this year's sales for next year's tickets. They all do it. The question is how and is it aggressive or is it what the NFL and the other owners will say, come on, you knew that, silly. That's improper. And if they've got it, he'll have no support.

If they can turn on him, they will. The other thing, too, and this is kind of easy to look at, with respect to the one claim that they weren't reporting the right numbers, they were skimming off the top, if you will. You could also just because these are net revenues that they're turning over to the league. You know, the 40% is of their net. So it's net of, you know, expenses, fees. I don't know what goes into it, but they could have inflated the expenses to just reduce the net revenue.

As, you know, many a 1099 does, you know, at the end of the year when they're looking at their expenses for the year that went into the revenue that was generated. Who knows? I just come back to one thing, Howard. I come back to, we know they do stupid, impulsive things. But this would be such a small number if this is it. Now, again, AJ suggested that there's more than just this in terms of financial impropriety. But this one, as a standalone, just wouldn't generate much benefit

it for the team? So with whether it's financial impropriety with regard to the rest of the league. So it's one thing, by the way, if the way they reported also affected their tax accounting, because then the United States government would have an issue.

Sure. If it's against the rest of the league, the victim would be the other clubs, and therefore the question would be, what are the set guidelines, what are the practices, and is he alone? And what we might simply have is an ambiguity on the league as to how to treat six game sales packages.

Are you attributing X to marketing? You put your overhead in this. We have it with our, we have it many times. Donald Trump's reporting for insurance and taxes going in opposite directions or for bank loans and taxes going in opposite directions. These kind of judgment issues are common, but the other 31 owners will know it when they see it. That's a little bit like Potter Stewart, the Justice I court for in the Supreme Court, saying with pornography, he knew it when he saw it. If the other 31 owners find out that Dan was doing this in the reporting that they've done for years too, if they say, huh, I guess we should have done that as well, that's one reaction.

If they say, are you frigging kidding me? He took that position. They will give Pash and Gadell the green light to tell him this guy has to go. So I think in a text back and forth with you last week, or it could have been somebody else, or maybe it was on our conversation. I said to you, you know, what bothers me about all of this is how much so many of us want this to be not only true,

but, you know, bad enough. for the other owners to finally act and to oust him. And I'm not so sure we can answer that at this point, although I would probably lean in the direction of it probably won't amount to something that can get him ousted. But that's just my gut feel today. There may be another story later on that makes me feel differently. But what I suggested last week on the show is just they got to be careful,

you know, from this Jerry. Connolly, you know, who's on the committee and doesn't want a stadium in Virginia and wears the anti, you know, Washington, you know, T-shirt and all of this stuff. If they, if they reach and they reach too far, it's, it would be, it seems impossible, but there are reasonable people that are going to be like, man, they're really now kind of picking on him to a certain degree. And all of a sudden you create some sympathy for him, like a borderline sympathetic figure. And I don't think it's possible that he could become that. But I think reasonable people could say if there are enough swings and misses, like stop doing that.

Focus on the thing that'll get him. Stop, you know, using your, you know, anger and emotional, you know, dislike for this person and what he's done to the team and focus on what you can actually get. And if you're focusing on things that are too far of a reach, maybe it says that what you were initially tasked to do isn't working very well. There's two ways this can really help Danny, as you think. One, overall sympathy in that they've gone after them time and time again and missed, but also in distracting if there was something. So the original sexual harassment, we don't know, but say,

people were taking those calendar outtakes because Danny asked him to do it. And if that had ever gotten focused on, that's what he actually did wrong. Well, these distractions now are all for his benefit because they have moved on to other things, and the other things he's innocent. That's why he jumped perhaps on Tiffany Johnson. Let's go focus on Tiffany Payne-O-Kin. The second reason this could help him, given our country, is the one. thing it wasn't. The one thing the sexual harassment schedule wasn't was politically divided.

Once we start getting into political divide, we took a pandemic and vaccines and turned them into controversies because we made them divisive between Democrats and Republicans. So now you've got Jerry Connolly and you got Jamie Raskin and Jamie Raskin and Jamie's a dear friend of mine, fabulous congressman, but he's not exactly a favorite of the Republicans. He was the head of the House impeachment committee. You've got those guys as the Maryland and Virginia reps on the committee. And it's beginning to look like the Dems don't really support them and going after Carol Maloney, Jamie Raskin, Jerry Connolly. These are not congresspeople who are the favorites of the Republicans. And so when it begins to look like Dan Snyder is being

turned into Donald Trump. You tried to impeach me twice and you missed. And now you got this January 6th stuff. And is it, once we get into that conversation, Snyder wins because it becomes this was a bunch of political stuff instead of financial wrongdoing or sexual harassment wrongdoing. What else is on your mind these days? What do you think about the Deshawn Watson stuff? We have not talked about that. What do you make of the contract that they signed? these 22 civil cases that are still out there. Give me your thoughts on how all of that shakes out. The minute Deshaun Watson signed that contract that said,

I don't get paid the first year, basically put it in the second year, I would have suspended him for two years and said, you are not going to make a mockery of my league. You are not going to, it's one thing if you sit there and say, look. Obviously, these 22 women felt I act inappropriately. I can't comment on that, but if there were 22 women who feel I act inappropriately, that's enough shame on me. I'm sorry for what I've done without, obviously can't admit anything. I love the game of football. I take my punishment right. I don't manipulate the system. For him to come out and say, A, I'm going to use this. Remember,

he got paid last year because he decided right after signing a contract that he was going to say, I don't like how the Texans organized their front office without talking to me. I'm now insulted. I'm not playing. And the answer should have been, you're not playing, you're not getting paid. And the reason that all went awry was the sexual harassment allegations came in, and he was sideline because they couldn't play. So now they had to pay him.

He was no longer holding out. It's that they couldn't play him until there was a little more clarity on the criminal side. So he got benefited by being paid. He now knows his day of reckoning is coming. He's got to get some sort of suspension. He got his full salary last year. So he knows this year he's going to be suspended, whether it's four games, eight games

or a season he doesn't know. So he and Cleveland said, go ahead. head, Roger Goodell, go try to suspend me. I won't lose a nickel because we're going to manipulate right around the league rules. We're going to suspend me in a year where I get no money because this year I just haven't earned nothing and I earned a league record every other year. And if someone finally did that, I'd say enough of the inmates running the institution. You wanted to do it that way. You need to be suspended of one full year of pay. and since you organized it for no pay the first year and a lot of pay the second year,

you'll have a two-year suspension. Let Cleveland protest, let him reorganize his contract and do it fair. But that was the most offensive part to me. The thumbing his nose at the entire league, the entire fan base, the entire female half of our planet, by saying, I will profit more than anybody in history. from my behavior, whether that was criminal, simply wrong, or just offensive, I will profit historically, and that's wrong. Wow. I mean, that was, I am with you through and through.

I mean, that was actually a very tough maybe Republican side of the House Oversight and Committee response. There is no, nothing that Deshawn Watson should get away with. I'm kidding because I love, but let me just mention this. Why did the league approve the contract? That's even more insane. They have to approve all of these contracts. How did they approve the contract that only pays them a million bucks in year one as a base salary to avoid being significantly fined?

I haven't. As you know, I'm good friends with the general counsel. One day, I'm going to have lunch and ask them this. But I suspect once again it's going to be the politics and the backroom. Remember, this is not run by a commissioner, according to principles. It's run by 32 people. You've got the Cowboys. Now, Jerry Jones is up to his ears in this kind of issues.

You've got improper conduct at a massage parlor by a football-affiliated person. And if we gave you that as the Jeopardy answer before Deshaun Watson come up, you'd buzz in and say, who is Robert Kraft? Right? Not. Yes, of course. Yeah. I would have gotten that one.

That would have been a $200-level double Jeopardy round question. There you go. And so the owners. Easy, easy question. The owners are just saying, please, Deshaun Watson throw some touchdowns and let's not be it about massage powers. Please, Danny, just keep your head down. We don't want any more.

How many owners have paid off people with NDAs? We thought they liked acronyms. NFL just sounds so cool, but the biggest acronym now existing in that league is NDA. They're full of nondisclosure agreements, right? That's what every owner has his. We should have a revelation day one day. Right after the draft,

they all announced how many NDAs, each of the owners had signed in their career. So they just want this to pass, and Cleveland went out of their way. But I've got to tell you, I actually feel good about being a commanders fan, because I'll tell you who wouldn't have done that. I believe people who wouldn't have done that is Ron Rivera, Martin Herney, Jason Wright. I don't believe we would have signed a Sean Watson,

and then structured around every week rule to do it, had a press conference and said, look, this is Cleveland. We need to win. I don't think we would have done that. So it's odd to be... Well, they were interested, but that's different from would they have held that press conference to say, not only do we sign him to the largest deal in the history of the league in terms of guaranteed money, but we made sure that when he gets suspended for six games, that he's going to pay the least amount possible. Maybe not on that. Who knows? I don't think they would have gone.

there. I just think the caliber of the front office people themselves went to let it, and they had to do their due diligence, but I don't think we were close. And not, by the way, when people say that we weren't close because the people were unwilling to come here, I assure you, if you pay someone double of what offer he has on the table, they will come here. So you might not be their first pick, but if you gave Russell Wilson an Aaron Rogers contract in Washington versus Denver, he would find his way to Washington. So Washington can get anyone. It's just they have to pay more to do it. But I don't think in this case with Sean Watson, we would have done that. I just think Ron Rivera, when he pushed on culture forever, would have said, what were we going to do? throw out everything we've done for years. We mean culture unless you're a really good quarterback.

Yeah, on your last comment, I would just say, you know, Amari Cooper would tell you otherwise, because Washington offered a lot more to Amari Cooper and he stayed in Dallas. Now, you're talking about offering double the amount, and sure, if anybody's going to start offering double or, you know, a significant, you know, which is what they used to do, you know, it was well above what any other offer was out there. Nobody was ever going to give Adam Archiletto what Washington gave him. Nobody was. So, yeah, you know, money talks, but I still think that, you know, for those with reasonable choices other than here, it's a tough sell for here. And I think that's what they've learned here over the last few years. And look, the only two signings they've made in this offseason are guys with Carolina ties or guys that were already here.

the J.D. McKissick thing was a positive thing. And I do think that Ron Rivera and Jack Del Rio and Scott Turner and Jason Wright and Marty Herney and Martin Mayhew are all, you know, decent people that, you know, if the players have exposure to them as former Carolina players do with Ron and his staff and the current players do it to everybody else, that it's probably not as dysfunctional as it used to be. But Alex Smith certainly thinks it's dysfunctional as hell. But that's ground already covered. But also his noise, remember, his noise is accurate.

It is fair for any player to say it's hard in Washington for football accomplishments to dominate the headlines given the background noise. Sure. That is true. Nothing he said was inaccurate. Nothing. Right. Right.

Yeah. But it isn't a reflection of the people they deal with daily now. The Ron Rivera's and the Martin Herni's. That I don't think, I think we're building the culture. Every time I hear a Jason Wright press conference, I am impressed. Every time I listen to, now I know they've blown some of these things, but every time I listen, even on the stadium, they just lost $650 million on a stadium deal,

and Jason Wright was interviewed about where they are on the stadium, and he just hit a home run. He just consistently says, you know, we're not doing this to the highest bidder. We are trying to figure out what experience should be best for where we go, where we end up, that we have a community and a team and a fan base that are left in the best position for it. I mean, the guy is good. The guy is good. Now we works for a guy.

We don't believe in. But Jason Wright is good. And the front office and the football side, at least at least, at least, is looking at culture. Thanks for doing this, as always. I will talk to you soon. Appreciate it. All the best, Kevin.

Take good care. Howard Gutman, everybody. God, I always enjoy his perspective and the conversation with Howard. I wanted to finish up the show today with this sad news. I saw this very early this morning before the radio show, and I was really sad when I saw it on social media, and that was that Bruce Johnson, the long-term, Time Channel 9 reporter had passed away at the age of 71 years old. I always really liked watching

Bruce Johnson. And I was talking about this with my producer on radio this morning, or maybe before the show, and I said, you know, for years I've kept this list, and I still have it. I have a a list of like guests, potential guests for like every category of discussion. It's all, it's 95% sports related. But there's like, you know, kind of a local news thing. And, you know, people like Jim Vance and Doreen Gensler and, you know, for years on that list was Gordon Peterson. And Bruce Johnson's name has been on that list. I was lucky enough to have Jim Vance on the radio show. many years ago after George Michael passed away. I'm pretty sure that's when it was.

And that was kind of a thrill, to be honest with you, because I don't know, I don't know if there was anybody cooler in terms of delivery and demeanor than Jim Vance as a lead anchor on the local newscast. I mean, he's truly iconic in this market. It's funny. This market's had so many longtime people. I mean, Doreen Gensler at Channel 4 has been there since, the late 80s. Sue Palka just retired. She was at Channel 5 since 1985. I would imagine that Topper

Shut now has been at Channel 9 for 30 years. But for so many years, it was like Gordon Peterson and Maureen and J.C. Hayward, you know, at Channel 9 with, you know, Vance and Doreen and Bob Ryan and George Michael at Channel 4. I was always a Channel 9 guy, especially when Brenner was alive. I mean, I loved Glenn Brenner. But I watched both. Channel 7, not as much, just to be totally candid. But God, Bruce Johnson was always so good.

And I've always had them on this list of guys to maybe call up one day and get on the show to talk about, you know, local news. Or, you know, you're always looking, especially in the months of like May and June, post-draft, May and June, you're always looking for, like, other ideas. And I never reached out.

Never met him, but always admired from afar how likable he was, how he was incredibly professional and smart and a great storyteller as a reporter. But he had that attribute, that characteristic that it's really important to have if you're going to have a 44-year run at one station and one market, which is what he had. I mean, he was at Channel 9, and I didn't know that until this morning. I knew he was there forever. 1976, he was 27 years old when he got hired by Channel 9, and he's been there ever since. And, I mean, he's been in the market.

He retired because he was diagnosed with cancer at the end of 2020. But what a run. What an unbelievable run he had of, you know, 44 years in the market. Anyway, I just always liked him. I always, I mean, my wife, like when I told her the news, she's like, God, we always said how much we liked him and how good he was. But he had that thing that you can't teach, you can't coach. And that is, do people like you? Do people, you know, find you, you know, appealing, you know, good-natured, you know, the kind of person that.

that you'd like to hang out with and have a beer and have a conversation with. He was always very pleasing and pleasant in addition to being a great reporter and a great storyteller. So anyway, I saw that this morning and I just thought, damn, 71, I had no idea he had been here since 76. I would have guessed he's been here since like the 80s at some point. But 1976, wow, 276. Wow, 27 years old, hired by a CBS affiliate and a top eight market in the country.

Although I don't know what D.C. was in 1976. It was a top 10 market, for sure. It's grown significantly over the years. But he was able to get that gig because he was damn good. So 22 Emmy Awards, 22 local Emmy Awards. I was reading on his obit in the post. I mean, that's not surprising to me. That's just how good he was. But anyway, I didn't realize, too, he had had health problems even prior to the cancer diagnosis. He had had a heart attack at a fairly young age.

But anyway, rest in peace, Bruce Johnson, from just a Washingtonian who's been here his whole life watching, you know, local news, not as much as I used to, for sure. But, man, you were so good at what you did. And so to his family, he's got a wife, he's got kids, he's got grandkids, our sympathies go out to them. Okay, that's it for the day back tomorrow. I used to always say that everybody I know in this business is either in therapy, been in therapy or needs therapy. This guy included.

And there's nothing wrong with that. You know, do whatever you need to stay out there, you know, in the game, in the context. It's time. It's been a great ride.