Q 6

PLAYBOY: The draft was supposed to encourage a balance of the best players on all teams. Without it, wouldn't all of the players flock to the big-money teams or to cities with warm weather?

Leigh Steinberg: Only one quarterback can start for a team and only three are carried on the roster, so it's unlikely that 12 quarterbacks would end up on one team. Also, there are many people who grew up in places like Minnesota, who like hunting and fishing or want to live in a nonurban environment. No, the chief effect of the draft has been to keep players' salaries down.

Incidentally, all drafts are found unconstitutional when they're challenged in court. They are allowed back only when the players' union agrees to such drafts during collective bargaining. The players have never had the power or the focus to get rid of the draft.

Q 7

PLAYBOY: The players' union claims that teams in the N.F.L. have no economic incentive to compete for players because they receive such a high guaranteed revenue from television and they sell out their stadium whether they're winning or losing. How do you respond to that?

Leigh Steinberg: Warren Moon was the only true free agent the league has ever seen. He came from Canada, so no team had right of first refusal and no compensation had to be paid by the signing team. Fourteen teams wanted him. Football is an immensely successful business. In the mid-Seventies, Tampa Bay and Seattle were sold for about $16,500,000 each. Ten years later, the Cowboys and the Broncos were sold for $80,000,000 and $70,000,000 respectively. In ten years, the value of a franchise in the N.F.L. had quadrupled or even quintupled.

In 1976, the national-television contract gave each team $2,142,000 as its share of the TV revenue. This year, each team will receive $14,000,000 as its share of the contract. In two years, they'll receive $17,000,000. The point is that each team will receive more in one year in TV revenue than it cost to purchase an entire franchise ten years ago. With cable and pay TV, the N.F.L. has projections that show that the share may rise to $30,000,000 a year by 1990. The teams can afford to compete. I don't feel undue sympathy for the owners.

Q 8

PLAYBOY: Did Steve Young have second thoughts about playing in the United States Football League?

Leigh Steinberg: Steve grew up dreaming of playing in the N.F.L. Roger Staubach was his hero. That was a hard dream for him to surrender. But the L.A. Express owners had gone about building their team sensibly. They bought high-round draft picks. They put together a strong front line. Sid Gillman, the architect of the modern passing game, would be coaching Steve. So when the Express went to Steve, it was selling a football proposition. Obviously, the dollars stunned everyone--$40,000,000 over four years--but he made his choice from a football standpoint. He talked with Joe Namath and others who had trail-blazed the American Football League, which was a similar situation. He realized he could be a pioneer in a new league with the best coaching possible. He made the remark after he was signed that all he wanted to do was fix up his '65 Oldsmobile and be able to take his girlfriend out to dinner once a week. It's true. He is a remarkably unaffected young man and, frankly, somewhat oblivious to money.

Q 9

PLAYBOY: Is Young or anybody else worth that much money?

Leigh Steinberg: The money was worth it to the Express and the U.S.F.L. for a lot of reasons. The old A.F.L. was able to force a merger with the N.F.L. by signing the top box-office marquee players--mostly quarterbacks. They're the players who draw fans into the stands. Also, Steve is almost symbolic of the fight between the U.S.F.L. and the N.F.L. He's a clean-cut, young, nice-looking, articulate, all-American quarterback who set every record--traditionally, an N.F.L. type. By signing him, not only did the U.S.F.L. add a superlative quarterback and upgrade one team, it made a giant step in changing the entire league's image.

The high figure was also justified because Los Angeles, as are Chicago and New York, is crucial to the league's television contract. It's very important to have high profiles in those major markets. Although he was signed by one team and one man, it was almost a league effort to sign Steve. The league decided that it needed the top quarterback.

Q 10

PLAYBOY: How would you assess the U.S.F.L.'s future?

Leigh Steinberg: It has a lot of things going for it. Its playing season is a major advantage. There are only so many Battles of the Celebrity Stewardesses that one can watch during the spring. It's a junk-sport time otherwise. On the other hand, the U.S.F.L. is probably responsible for the breakup of more marriages than anything else. I thought it was cruel and unusual punishment to extend the sports season to last year round. And, seriously, unlike the ill-fated World Football League, the U.S.F.L. has the television contract, which has already been renewed for next year, and it's already was ahead of the old A.F.L. after the same amount of time.

Q 11

PLAYBOY: Since Bartkowski, how have you chosen your clients?

Leigh Steinberg: With any potential client, I first try to get a sense of what his values are. I want to know his priorities: How does he rate short-term dollars, long-term dollars, family, geographical location, interest in starting, quality of coaching, second-career possibilities, endorsements? I don't take him if money is all he is interested in. I won't accept a client unless he is willing to use his high athletic profile to trigger a higher quality of life off the field. I also believe the athlete should retrace his steps. He should go back to the high school, collegiate and professional communities that helped shape him and reward those individuals and institutions that helped him. Thirty-two of my athletes have set up scholarships at their high schools. They repay their scholarships to their universities.

I ask each athlete to find something especially troubling about the world to work on that will give him a good feeling. For each athlete it's different. Rolf Benirschke, the field-goal kicker for the Chargers, gives $50 for every field goal he kicks to the fund for endangered species at the San Diego Zoo. We then organize that community by forming a board of directors from economic, political, educational and media figures to push the program. We take posters with pledge cards all over the city. A kid can contribute a nickel a field goal. A corporation can contribute $1000 a field goal.

Q 12

PLAYBOY: Doesn't that create a lot of pressure for a player to have a good year?

Leigh Steinberg: Benirschke missed three field goals in one game and somebody said, "How many species have died now, Rolf?"

I try to get athletes to understand that they live in a world surrounded by adulation--money, women who like them because they are athletes. They need to understand that living in a family and in a community where people care for and nourish one another provides the values that will stand the test of time and transcend an athletic experience. If they don't, they're setting themselves up for a terrible letdown after sports end.