It’s never good to land on the radar of the FBI. The NFL Players Association has.
Daniel Kaplan, in an item for AwfulAnnouncing.com, explains that an FBI probe of OneTeam Partners has extended from the MLB Players Association to the NFLPA.
Jeff Passan and Don Van Natta Jr. of ESPN.com first reported on the probe, with primary focus on the MLBPA. (The story currently appears on the ESPN.com MLB page, not its NFL page.) Per the ESPN.com article, law-enforcement agents have inquired about money used to strike deals and to monetize the name, image, and likeness rights of players.
OneTeam is a group licensing venture formed by the MLBPA, the NFLPA, and RedBird Capital Partners in 2019. Other sports unions have since joined the group
OneTeam said in a statement to ESPN.com that the company is “aware of an ongoing investigation of allegations concerning our partners. We want to emphasize that OneTeam is not the subject of the investigation and has not been accused of any wrongdoing in any way. OneTeam is fully committed to cooperating with the investigation.”
The NFLPA issued the following statement to Kaplan: “We are aware of the investigation and fully prepared to cooperate if the NFLPA is contacted.” However, Kaplan reports that contact has been made.
Specifically, Kaplan writes that NFLPA in-house counsel Heather McPhee sent a memo to the NFLPA’s board of player representatives on Friday, in which she said that the FBI had contacted her and individual players.
The investigation possibly traces to equity options. An MLBPA whistleblower group had accused executive director Tony Clark of awarding equity options to himself. Separately, the NFLPA conducted an investigation regarding equity options issued to executive director Lloyd Howell.
However it plays out, OneTeam has been one very significant source of revenue for the NFLPA. As noted by ESPN.com, OneTeam has paid the NFLPA $422.8 million over the past five years.
