NFL Commissioner Goodell Faces Two Watershed Moments

The new commissioner of the NFL, Roger Goodell, has spent no time making his mark on the venerable sports league. Within a few months, he has all ready suspended "Pac-man" Jones, Tank Johnson, and Chris Henry. Yet the true test of his leadership is yet to come.

The first real test he will receive is when the truth comes out about star quarterback Michael Vick of the Atlanta Falcons and Vick's involvement in illegal dog-fighting. Although "Pac-man" Jones, Tank Johnson, and Chris Henry are well known to NFL fans, they are not well known to the public, like Atlanta's star quarterback. Michael Vick is easily one of the most popular players in the lague and his suspension would cause a major issue for the Falcon's hopes of winning this season. Not only that, but Vick's suspension could cause a drop in Falcon ticket sales and memoribilia sales. That will certainly rub the Falcon's owner, Arthur Blank, the wrong-way leading perhaps to an outright admonition by the new commissioner. Blank has been known to speak his mind and to run his team like the worst micro-manager, stepping on everyone's toes, continually spewing his hopes of a better Falcon future, standing on his team's sidelines during the game, as if he were Saladin in the Middle East.

However, that will not be Goodell's only watershed moment. Because the NFL is one of the most powerful organizations in the world, Goodell will have two watershed moments. The first is the Michael Vick situation. The second is the television issue.

No matter what the media may lead you to believe, television in the United States is still king, and that king's consigliere is the NFL. The NFL routinely pulls in better ratings than any other sport. They are the television equivalent of Silvio, Tony Soprano's now vegetized, whispered to, confidant.

The NFL wins ratings even when showing an old game or a pre-season game against another sport. Amazing, considering the fact that the other major sports, the NBA and Major League Baseball, both have polarizing, intensely loved and hated figures in their leagues.

The NFL is a juggernaut and it decided to prove its "juggernautness" by starting its own station, the NFL Network. However, a problem erupted. The NFL Network demanded to be treated like a real network, namely, ESPN. The major cable company in the nation, Time Warner, decided that treating the NFL Network, who served only one part of the public, the same as ESPN, a decidedly well known, was ridiculous and, therefore, pulled the plug on the NFL Network.

How will Goodell solve this issue? There are some who say that the NFL is so powerful that Time Warner will cave in and give the NFL what it desperately wants, its own forum on the largest provider of cable television in the country. Others feel that no matter how powerful the NFL believes itself to be, there is no way it can outlast Time Warner in a duel. After all, Time Warner all ready owns the premier cable news station in the world, CNN, as well as its own commercial television network in conjunction with Paramount, The CW.

Commissioner Goodell's predecessors did a fantastic job of creating a must-have commercial product in the United States. Pete Rozelle, had the brains and brawn to actually schedule his product against the nation's holiest day, Sunday, and it paid off handsomely. Paul Tagliabue created the most powerfully advertising friendly television show this world has ever seen.

But, what will Goodell do? Faced with perhaps the biggest challenge the NFL has ever faced, will Goodell help in making sure the league maintains its stranglehold on television? There's no way to tell but I have the feeling that Commissioner Goodell is going to lose more sleep over it than he did before suspending Tank Johnson for eight games.