League Supported By Gambling Owes The Rooney And Steeler Family A Rule Change

The NFL and the Pittsburgh Steelers go hand in hand. The Steelers were bought in 1933 for $2,500 by Art Rooney. He had gotten lucky at a horse race and won some money and decided to invest it in a pro football team.

In the seventy five years since that transaction took place, the Steelers have stood as the model franchise in the NFL. They have been owned by the same family that bought the team for all seventy five years. That, in itself, is an accomplishment in today's sports world.

The connection between the Steelers and the NFL goes much deeper than that. The Rooney family has been at the front of some of the most groundbreaking changes the league has seen. It is the Rooney rule that forces teams to interview minority candidates for their head coaching and GM positions these days.

It is also the Rooney's that have helped in solving several labor disputes in the league, and have gotten elected perhaps the most respected commissioner of all time, Paul Tagliabue. Why then, is a franchise and owners so richly intertwined with the NFL on the verge of giving up majority control of their team?

The answer is gambling.

Yes, that is the same gambling that has helped push the NFL to the top of the sports food chain in the past two decades. The same gambling that has made rich men out of many people in the football world simply by showing its face around the stadiums.

The NFL has a gambling policy in effect that owners may not have gambling interests outside of the teams they own. The Rooney's do. They own a couple of race tracks in New York in Florida, and while that does not break the gambling code, the machines added to those facilities does.

With the NFL so eager to help franchises who are struggling in their towns, it is shocking that they have not come to the aid of the most respected family in the history of the game.

The Rooney's are not absent of blame. The brothers that now own the team have been squabbling for years, and have had ample time to fix this situation on their own. They haven't.

That leaves one of the most hypocritical situations in the history of sports. The NFL would not be anywhere close to as popular as it is currently if not for two things, gambling and the Rooney family.

Yet the same combination that helped create the ratings monster that is the NFL, is being asked by the league to separate. The NFL will gladly take all that gambling and the Rooney's have had to offer, but now they must turn their back on two of their own.

No matter how you spin the story, that will be a sad ending from a sad league.

"I have spent my entire life devoted to the Pittsburgh Steelers and the National Football League. I will do everything possible to work out a solution to ensure my father's legacy of keeping the Steelers in the Rooney family and in Pittsburgh for at least another 75 years," said Dan Rooney.

That does not sound like a man who is having gambling interfere with his sports team. The NFL has made many rule changes thanks to the Rooney family. Maybe it's time they made one that would return the favor.

July 9, 2008
Posted By Vincent Tapoglia III
Staff Editor, CasinoGamblingWeb.com
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