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After NFL clashes, Romo’s event on track
The third try seems to be the charm for Tony Romo’s fantasy football convention this weekend in Dallas,
Two times in two years, Tony Romo’s fantasy football convention has been canceled after clashing with the NFL over gambling and sponsorship disputes.
In 2015, nearly 100 NFL players were scheduled to attend Romo’s National Fantasy Football Convention in Las Vegas before the NFL stepped in and banned players from attending because it was being held at a casino property. The event was canceled as a result.
In 2016, Romo’s company tried to move the event to Pasadena, Calif., partly because “there wasn’t a casino that close to it,” said Andy Alberth, who co-owns the event along with his cousin, Romo, the former Dallas Cowboys quarterback.
But the NFL stepped in again, this time because of an issue the league had with the event’s headline sponsor, EA Sports. As a result, the company said it had to pull the plug in 2016, putting its future in doubt until it decided to make a third try for its inaugural convention — this time in Dallas for a three-day event this weekend.
“Never say never, because you never know what they (the NFL) are going to do, but we never got this close. And we have really good lawyers,” Alberth told USA TODAY Sports. “We’re very confident and are super-excited to see this thing come true after three years.”
Cowboys players Dez Bryant and Ezekiel Elliott are among more than 50 current or former NFL players expected to attend what Alberth describes as a Disneyland or Comic-Con for football fans — a convention from Friday to Sunday where fans interact with players and fantasy football experts.
It almost didn’t happen, but the company decided to put up its dukes in a business struggle that highlights the power of the NFL and NFL policies that some consider to be hypocritical or overreaching.
Romo’s company is suing the NFL over both canceled events and is scheduled to go to trial in one case in November. In response, the NFL has said the company’s legal claims are baseless and that it was protecting its rights. Meanwhile, the company has scaled down its vision somewhat and expects this weekend’s event to attract 2,500 to 7,000 fans.
“We should be heading into year three right now with 150 players,” Alberth said. “It’s more of a local event this year than we want it to be, but we just didn’t have the budget and we lost a lot of money and have been fighting the NFL in court as well. We’re excited that through all their interference we can still have it.”
The NFL’s attorneys said the league did not improperly interfere with the previously scheduled conventions. But attorneys for the company disagree and said in 2015 that the NFL “likely decided to kill Tony Romo’s effort so that it could replace it with one of its own.”
Each case is different and in dispute. THE 2015 CONTROVERSY Romo, who retired from the NFL this year, couldn’t be reached for comment. His involvement with the event started a few years ago when Alberth said he approached Romo about paying him to put his name on it. Romo instead said he wanted to play a bigger part of it and wanted an ownership stake to see “how big this can get,” according to Alberth, who said he is one of three owners of the convention company, including Romo.
In Alberth’s view, a national fantasy football convention had never been properly executed. If successful, the convention would make money from sponsorships and ticket sales.
But their grand idea quickly ran into problems. The first National Fantasy Football Convention (NFFC) was supposed to be held at the Sands Expo convention center in Las Vegas, near the Venetian hotel and casino in 2015. Nearly 100 players were scheduled to appear, including Romo, Bryant and New England Patriots star Rob Gronkowski.
And that was a big problem, according to the NFL. The league’s gambling policy states players and personnel are not allowed to make promotional appearances at casinos. Less than five weeks before the event, an attorney for the league phoned representatives of the Cowboys and said NFL players would be fined or suspended if they attended the NFFC, according to convention’s lawsuit against the NFL.
It didn’t matter that the event was not inside a casino. The convention center was owned by a casino company, the Las Vegas Sands Corp., and was promoted as being part of the Venetian hotel and casino.
The event was canceled, and the NFFC sued the NFL for damages.
“The NFL’s actions reek of hypocrisy, given the NFL’s position on other, similar events, their approval of partnerships between NFL franchises and casinos, and their own promotional usage of NFL players and their likenesses for the benefit of their own events,” the lawsuit stated.
The league argued it had the right and power to enforce its gambling policy as part of its collective bargaining agreement with the players union. A judge sided with the NFL and threw the case out, but the NFFC has appealed. The case is still pending.
Meanwhile, the NFL this year approved the relocation of the Oakland Raiders to Las Vegas in 2020. The team will play in a stadium that will be owned by the Las Vegas Stadium Authority, whose governing board includes executives from the MGM and Caesars casino companies.
Despite the setback, Alberth and Romo tried again in 2016, this time at Pasadena Convention Center. THE 2016 CONTROVERSY The idea for 2016 was to get far away from casinos and take advantage of the big Los Angeles market, where fans were getting ready for the return of the Rams from St. Louis after a 21-year absence.
More than 100 NFL players were scheduled to attend. EA Sports and its popular Madden
NFL video game also were going to be a big part of it as a sponsor. Fans even would get to play the
Madden game against NFL players in attendance.
To promote this, the NFFC put the Madden logo on its website — a logo that includes the NFL’s shield logo as part of the larger
Madden logo. And that was a problem at NFL headquarters. NFL attorneys contacted a representative for EA Sports to tell him the NFFC was displaying the Madden NFL Logo on the NFFC website without the NFL’s approval. Shortly thereafter, EA Sports decided to cancel its participation in the event — a huge blow for the convention.
“The NFL had no issue with EA Sports sponsoring or partnering with the 2016 Event,” the NFL said in court documents. “Instead, the NFL explained that its sole concern was (the NFFC’s) unauthorized use of the Madden NFL Logo, with the NFL Shield design, on (the NFFC) website.”
The NFFC says there was more to it than that and believes the NFL spooked EA Sports into withdrawing as a sponsor. Citing the NFL’s “interference,” the NFFC canceled the Pasadena event and pursued a lawsuit against the league that is set for trial in Texas in November.
“Because the NFL likely suspected that the best way to potentially obliterate the NFFC would be to go for the jugular — the NFL made a calculated attack by going after the NFFC’s headline sponsor,” the NFFC’s lawsuit states.
According to the suit, the NFL suggested that “potential sponsors should not participate in the 2016 NFFC event” because the league was fighting the NFFC in court over the canceled event in 2015. The NFL disputes this.
But Alberth sees the NFL as a big business trying to stomp out a small business that was encroaching on its turf with its players. Alberth says the convention pays players up to $25,000 for their appearances and many have been supportive of his fight.
“People don’t understand,” Alberth said. “They (the NFL) don’t own the players. Players have such a short window to build their brand and make money. They’re not going to make money as good as they are when they retire because their value does go down.”
He doesn’t have an estimate on how much money his company has lost after two canceled events. He says that’s a better question for a damage model expert in court. In the meantime, he’s focused on staging his first convention, finally. Unless another phone call from the NFL somehow changes everything again.
“It’s definitely three years in the making,” Alberth said. “The feeling of it finally happening is almost too scary to think about.”