Rog inflates wallet with 5-year deal

Roger Goodell can raise a glass of champagne to his adoring Deflategate fans in Foxborough from Robert Kraft’s suite for the Patriots opener on Sept. 7 to celebrate his five-year contract extension that should be worth around $200 million. Cheers. His $40 million a year income is $15 million more than Derek Carr, the highest paid player in NFL history.

Although it’s bound to make Patriots fans gag on their clam chowder and require a few extra brews to make the nachos go down easier for Ezekiel Elliott-crazed Cowboys fans, the most controversial commissioner in sports is not going anywhere, according to a report Monday in the Sports Business Journal.

One year ago, sources told the Daily News it was not a given that Goodell wanted to stay past the expiration of his contract in March of 2019. At that point, he was less than two years removed from the explosive Ray Rice domestic violence case that could have gotten him fired and he was in the middle of the battle with Tom Brady over deflated footballs.

Money was not the issue. His pay had escalated to $40 million a year after negotiating a favorable CBA for the owners and incredibly lucrative network television contracts. The league’s revenue for 2017 is around $14 billion, well on its way to Goodell’s goal of $25 billion by 2027.

So, why would he leave the only job he’s ever wanted and end his relationship with the only company he’s ever worked for since graduating college in 1981?

Sources say as much as he loved the job, he was tiring of the constant turmoil and it might be time for something else. He had enough money to last a couple of lifetimes. Names of high level executives in the NFL office were already being floated as potential successors.

Ultimately, Goodell decided he has at least five more seasons left in him after his current deal expires. He will be 65 in February of 2024 and his extension expires one month later. If he calls it quits then, he will have lasted one more year in the job — he was named commissioner in 2006 — than his predecessor Paul Tagliabue, but his 18 years in office would still fall well short of his idol Pete Rozelle’s 29 years.

His most important issue: The future of the game with the issue of concussions and CTE threatening where the league will be in 10-15 years. Goodell has pushed through 47 rule changes as commissioner designed to make the game safer, but football is by its nature a dangerous collision sport.

Based on his compensation the last few years, Goodell’s new deal will be worth at least $200 million. His salary is less than $10 million but his annual compensation usually quadruples based on the performance bonuses decided by the six-member compensation committee, which is based on the extraordinary money he is putting in their pockets.

The committee is chaired by Atlanta’s Arthur Blank and includes Giants owner John Mara and Kraft. It does not include Jerry Jones, who is livid with Goodell for suspending Elliott six games for domestic violence when Jones had been adamant that Elliott would not be suspended. Elliott’s appeal is Aug. 29.

Goodell extension is likely to be announced no later than Tuesday. The new contract will take him through another round of contentious collective bargaining negotiations with NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith, who is expected to be reelected by the players next year.

Smith told The MMQB last week a work stoppage is a “virtual certainty” when the current CBA expires after the 2020 season. Smith told Real Sports that Goodell “lied” about promising to consult with the union when he developed a new personal conduct policy in 2014.

Smith vs. Goodell 1.0 produced a lockout by the owners that ended with a new CBA at the start of camp in 2011 with a 10-year deal. Four seasons removed from the expiration of that deal, Smith is already predicting a work stoppage. Smith vs. Goodell 2.0 should be quite entertaining.

The bottom line for the owners is the bottom line.

Goodell has made billionaires even richer. Jones bought the Cowboys for $140 million in 1989 when they were losing $1 million per month. Forbes now lists the ‘Boys as being worth $4.2 billion as the most valuable sports franchise in the world. Kraft bought the Patriots for $172 million in 1994. Now they are second in the NFL at $3.4 billion. Clearly, Goodell is not concerned with taking on the owners of his most valuable franchises.

The Patriots are sixth in the world on Forbes’ list. In between the Cowboys and Patriots are the Yankees and three European soccer teams. In fact, 29 of the 32 NFL teams are listed in the top 50 with only the Bengals, Lions and Bills failing to make the list. That makes it much easier for the owners to overlook situations like the Rice case, when Goodell initially gave him just a two-game suspension for hitting his thensoon-to-be wife and then the league was embarrassed when a second video was released actually showing Rice throwing a punch. Goodell spent $5 million on Ted Wells to investigate Brady on what was nothing more than a misdemeanor — if even that. There is still no concrete proof that Brady had anything to do with football being deflated in the first half of the 2014 AFC Championship Game. Now he is locked in a battle with Elliott, the most important player on Jones’ team that is trying to get to the Super Bowl for the first time in 22 years. NFL owners, by a vote of 32-0 in May, gave the compensation committee the power to negotiate with Goodell without having to bring it back to them to approve. oodell has made mistakes in his 11 years as commissioner, but his enemies are clearly not within the ownership. Even so, with the Elliott decision just a week away at the time, it was interesting to see Goodell at Jones’ Hall of Fame party in Canton. Elliott was there, too.

GThey won’t be partying together anytime soon although with his new contract, Goodell can pop the bubbly.