Sports

Washington Commanders Deny Financial Malfeasance in a Letter to F.T.C.

The Washington Commanders on Monday offered a robust public rebuttal of congressional testimony made by a former ticket salesman who claimed that the team skimmed revenue from ticket sales meant to be shared with the rest of the N.F.L. and withheld security deposits from fans.

In 102 pages of support documents sent to the Federal Trade Commission, the Commanders sought to disprove a series of allegations that Jason Friedman, who worked at the club for 24 years, made to the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, which has been looking into sexual harassment claims and “hostile workplace culture” at the team since October.

Last week, the committee referred to the F.T.C. the alleged instances of financial fraud raised by Friedman in March.

In response, the Commanders wrote to the F.T.C. because, it said, the congressional committee did not request any documents or interviews with the team about the allegations, which the Commanders called “uncorroborated.”

“Had the committee posed any of these questions or requests to the team, the team could — and would — easily and fully have rebutted each allegation, as the complained-of conduct did not occur, plain and simple, as demonstrated below,” the Commanders said in the letter signed by Jordan Siev, a lawyer at Reed Smith, an outside law firm hired by the team.

The F.T.C. could open its own investigation into the claims, but has made no statement about its plans.

The letter was also sent to the N.F.L. commissioner, Roger Goodell, and the attorneys general of Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia.

Among the documents the Washington N.F.L. franchise offered in its defense were declarations from their former general counsel, former chief revenue officer and former director of finance. Friedman, the team noted, was not an accountant and not aware of how the revenue that he claimed was improperly categorized was accounted for on the team’s ledgers.

Friedman, who last served as a vice president for sales and customer service, was fired in October 2020 for poor performance and inappropriate behavior, according to the team. In its letter to the F.T.C., the team said he verbally abused his staff and had a sexual relationship with a co-worker who directly reported to him.

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In March, Friedman testified to the committee about a practice he said some team executives called “juicing,” in which revenue from N.F.L. game tickets was reported as having come from other events held at the team’s stadium in order to reduce the amount of ticket revenue it was required to share with the 31 other N.F.L. teams.

One example he provided involved licensing fees for college games or concerts hosted at the team’s stadium in Maryland. In testimony the committee cited in its letter to the F.T.C., Friedman said team executives kept one set of books with the altered numbers it submitted to the N.F.L. and a second set with the accurate accounting that was shown to the team owner Daniel Snyder.

Snyder, through a representative, declined to comment.

In Monday’s submission to the F.T.C., the team said its auditors, as well as those from the N.F.L., had access to all revenue, including from non-N.F.L. events, and would have discovered such a discrepancy had it existed. Specifically responding to Friedman’s claim that $162,360 from Commanders games was categorized as revenue from a college game, the team offered screen shots of emails it claims show that the money was properly listed as the N.F.L. team revenue.

Friedman also testified that in his role he oversaw the processing of security deposits paid by season-ticket holders and that after Snyder bought the team in 1999, the team intentionally made it difficult for ticket holders to recoup their refundable payments. He alleged that the Commanders organization held on to $5 million from such deposits.

Washington disputed those claims, saying it converted about $200,000 in security deposits into revenue, but only after those customers defaulted on their payments. In 2014 alone, the Commanders said, they refunded the security deposits of about 750, or half, of the dormant accounts, and over time returned more than $2 million.

Last week, the N.F.L. said that Mary Jo White, a former federal prosecutor hired by the league, would look into the claims of financial malfeasance raised by Friedman. White was already investigating allegations by female former employees who said they were sexually harassed by Snyder. The team owner has denied those allegations.

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