NFL Commissioner To Speak At UIW

[duncan228]

NFL commissioner to speak at UIW
Tom Orsborn - San Antonio Express-News

New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson has arranged for NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to speak at the University of the Incarnate Word on Oct. 8 to help promote the school’s new football program and discuss the league’s future, the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce announced Friday.

“San Antonio is pleased to host commissioner Goodell and to learn about his vision for the future and what that could mean for us,” chamber president Richard Perez said in a release. “We’ll use this as an opportunity to showcase the nation’s seventh largest city.”

A member of the chamber’s NFL Task Force who is close to Benson said Goodell agreed to come to San Antonio as a favor to Benson, who has helped bankroll UIW’s football team, which begins play in 2009.

“I wouldn’t read too much into this,” said Charlie Amato, moving quickly to squash any speculation that Goodell’s visit represents a new push by the city to attract an NFL team.

“But it is an opportunity for us to possibly showcase our city some and show him that this is a sports town,” said Amato, owner of the investment firm SWBC and a Spurs shareholder.

When the Saints moved their operations to San Antonio in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, then-NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue suggested the city wasn’t big enough to support an NFL franchise. The Saints played three games at the Alamdome before returning to New Orleans after the season.

“We’re going to be moving up in market size, not down or flat,” Tagliabue told the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

Amato said Goodell would receive a “soft sales pitch” about how the city has changed since Tagliabue made that statement.

“The demographics here have changed since 2005,” Amato said. “It’s a lot more positive. We hope to have (Goodell) meet with city leaders to discuss those changes.”

[bresilhac]

It's all about the spin. The Orsborne piece tells you to not get excited and to not read into the visit too much. What else are we to read into it? What the EN piece also downplays is the fact the commissioner will be delivering a speech specifically about the future of the NFL. Does anyone think its coincidental that he will be doing this in San Antonio? Of course the commissioner's visit bodes well for San Antonio. The Chamber of Commerce and all of the local corporate big wigs will be there. Orsborne's piece leave's you feeling that it's no big deal that the commissioner of the NFL is coming to San Antonio.

In short his article is ing terrible. Now contrast that with the piece in the San Antonio Business Journal written by W. Scott Bailey. It's a much more positive sounding, upbeat article that seems to herald the coming of the commissioner and is a great piece that leaves you feeling enthused and excited about the upcoming event. It's always in the spin and how an article is written.

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanantoni...5/daily35.html