An adviser says Dan and Art Rooney are making progress. But even if they do manage to cobble together a deal, hurdles remain. Three-quarters of the league’s 32 teams would have to approve a transaction. While every owner admires the Rooneys, not every one is likely to back a highly leveraged sale of a Rust Belt franchise in the teeth of a recession in advance of an expected labor showdown in 2011.
So the Steelers and the league are left attempting, in the words of one lawyer involved, “a high-wire act in an alternative universe.” There are the N.F.L.’s rules. There’s the economy. There’s the powerful history. And there’s the family itself. The five Rooney brothers have 29 children to account for, not to mention an identity wrapped up in the franchise. For proof, try lifting “Ruanaidh” (Gaelic for Rooney), a family memoir that Art Jr. self-published earlier this year. The book runs 483 pages, or some 400,000 words.
“Your emotions are, You never want to get out of the Steelers,” Art Jr. told me a few weeks after the September conference call. “But you know the facts. The grim reaper is right down the street.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/02/sports/playmagazine/112colbiz.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=sports&pagewanted=all
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