Fantasy Play - Paving The Way

An article in the New York Post revealed that the National Football League used a big bucks lobbyist to ram through Internet gambling-curbing legislation in the closing hours of the U.S. Congress legislative session.

However, opponents of the bill charge that the NFL broke the rules when it fast-tracked legislation that never received a vote in the Senate - a trick play that has provided a big exemption for fantasy football.

Now the NY Post report reveals that NFL runs its own fantasy football site and gets royalties from others. Fantasy contest companies generate up to $200 million a year, according to an industry association.

Marty Gold of Covington & Burling and former counsel to Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) is the lawyer hired by the NFL to design its lobbying strategy. Gold and his firm billed a stunning $700,000 to the NFL in 2005, according to disclosure reports, lobbying on issues ranging from Internet gambling to steroids.

Last month, just before lawmakers left Washington on recess to campaign, the league was struggling for a way to overcome opposition to approving the anti-online gambling bill. The league decided to try to tack the bill onto final defense legislation that couldn’t be amended.

“It wasn’t my idea,” says Gold. NFL Chairman Roger Goodell and past chairman Paul Tagliabue wrote Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner (R-Va.) that the bill was an “achievement” he could be proud of, but that it would not get through the Senate by regular means.

But Warner, a senior Navy and Marine veteran, refused to cooperate. Frist then hatched a new plan to add the online gambling measure to a bill to secure the nation’s ports. House Homeland Security Chairman Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.) was more compliant and allowed it onto his port bill. “I’m not about to stop a bill because of Internet gambling,” explained King, who wrote the port bill. “That was their final offer for that day.”

Tony Cabot, the lawyer who represents Las Vegas casinos, said, “I assume those Republicans got beat down pretty bad by Frist and Hastert. I guess they thought they had no choice.”

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