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Don Van Natta Jr.
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Don Van Natta Jr.
ESPN Senior Author
- Host and co-executive producer of the brand new ESPN collection, “Backstory”
- Member of three Pulitzer Prize-winning groups for nationwide, explanatory and public service journalism
- Creator of three books, together with New York Instances best-selling “First Off the Tee: Presidential Hackers, Duffers, and Cheaters from Taft to Bush”
- 24-year newspaper profession at The New York Instances and Miami Herald
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Tisha Thompson
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Tisha Thompson
ESPN
Tisha Thompson is an investigative reporter for ESPN based mostly in Washington, D.C. Her work seems on all platforms, each domestically and internationally.
At the least 100 gamers from roughly half of the NFL’s 32 groups face fines and doable suspension for allegedly promoting their allotted tickets to this yr’s Tremendous Bowl LIX above face worth in violation of league insurance policies, a number of sources advised ESPN.
Below an settlement between the league and the NFL Gamers Affiliation, gamers who violated the rule will likely be fined 1½ instances the face ticket worth and lose their allotted tickets to the subsequent two Tremendous Bowls. If they’re enjoying within the recreation, the gamers may have the prospect to buy seats.
Those that decline the punishment might be suspended by commissioner Roger Goodell, league and union sources with direct data of the state of affairs mentioned.
The sources mentioned that the variety of gamers concerned was “in extra of 100,” a few of whom have already accepted the fines to keep away from lacking video games. A league supply declined to determine the gamers and workers who had offered their Tremendous Bowl tickets or their golf equipment.
In keeping with an NFL memo despatched to all 32 groups and obtained by ESPN, an investigation revealed that workforce workers and gamers offered tickets to a “small variety of ‘bundlers’ who have been working with a ticket reseller.”
In keeping with media experiences earlier than the February recreation in New Orleans between the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles, ticket costs on secondary websites ranged from $2,588 to almost $3,500 for the most affordable seats, with some tickets fetching over $10,000.
Gamers and workers who labored immediately with the bundlers or “in any other case had a higher function … will face elevated penalties,” the memo mentioned.
“Our preliminary investigation has decided that numerous NFL gamers and coaches, employed by a number of NFL Golf equipment, offered Tremendous Bowl tickets for greater than the ticket’s face worth in violation of the coverage,” learn the memo from NFL chief compliance officer Sabrina Perel to the groups.
“This long-standing League Coverage, which is particularly included into the Collective Bargaining Settlement, prohibits League or Membership workers, together with gamers, from promoting NFL recreation tickets acquired from their employer for greater than the ticket’s face worth or for an quantity higher than the worker initially paid for the ticket, whichever is much less.”
Perel added that the league will improve obligatory coaching earlier than Tremendous Bowl LX for all league personnel to emphasise the foundations and “the broader precept that nobody ought to revenue personally from their NFL affiliation on the expense of our followers.”
