It has been reported that the NFL paid its commissioner, Roger Goodell, $29.49m in 2011, nearly tripling his pay. Goodell's salary was reported to include a bonus of $22.3m.
The commissioner was paid $9.89m in 2010 – according to Daniel Kaplan of the Sports Business Journal, who reported the new figure on Friday, Goodell received a new, $20m contract in February 2012. The highest-paid player in the NFL, the New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees, has a salary of $20m per season.
BREAKING NEWS:NFL paid Roger Goodell $29.49 million in 2011, nearly tripling his pay, according to tax return to be filed later today...
— daniel kaplan (@dkaplanSBJ) February 15, 2013
Goodell, the son of a Republican senator from New York, took over as NFL commissioner in 2006, on the retirement of Paul Tagliabue. He has faced a number of difficulties including the 2011 lockout, which he helped to end before the start of the season, and the Bountygate scandal of 2012, in which New Orleans Saints players and coaches were found to have run a scheme giving players financial rewards for injuring specified opponents
He has also presided over the expansion of the NFL's plans to stage regular-season games overseas, which will see two sell-out games played at Wembley Stadium in London next season, and the league's response to more than 3,000 lawsuits filed by former players and families of former players over concussion-related injuries.
This month, Goodell oversaw Super Bowl XLVII in New Orleans, in which the Baltimore Ravens beat the San Francisco 49ers 34-31 in the most-watched event in the history of American television. Vilified by some in New Orleans before the game, due to his handling of Bountygate, after it Goodell was faced with investigating and explaining a power outage in the Mercedes Benz Superdome that caused the game to be stopped for 34 second-half minutes.
