NFL to lay off at least 150

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=3757152

NEW YORK -- The recession has hit the NFL.


The league said Tuesday it is cutting more than 10 percent of its headquarters staff in response to the downturn in the nation's economy.

The cuts were announced in a memo to league staff by commissioner Roger Goodell. The league is eliminating about 150 of its staff of 1,100 in New York, NFL Films in New Jersey and production facilities in Los Angeles.

Goodell said these were difficult and painful steps, but necessary in the current economic environment.

The NFL has been symbolic of the wealth surrounding professional sports, but it now joins the NBA, Major League Baseball and NASCAR in announcing layoffs.

In a related development, the NFL has indefinitely suspended plans to play a preseason game in China as the New England Patriots closed their operations there, according to Sports Business Journal.

"There has been some belt-tightening given the economy, and one of the things we suspended was our operation there," Patriots spokesman Stacey James said, according to the report.

The Patriots, the only NFL team with an on-site presence in China, had been slated to play a preseason game there as early as 2009. That game will not occur, NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said, according to the report.

That decision became "increasingly apparent earlier this year once we locked into having three years of games in the [United Kingdom]," McCarthy said, according to the report.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.



Related Topics: NFL, New England Patriots