Five major sports unions hold stakes in OneTeam, the two largest belonging to the NFLPA and the Major League Baseball Players Association, which together own two-thirds of the company, according to people briefed on the business structure who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. The NFLPA has 44 percent, the MLBPA 22 percent.<\/p>\n
The unions representing players in Major League Soccer, the U.S. Women\u2019s National Soccer Team and the Women\u2019s National Basketball Association own much smaller shares in OneTeam: 3.3 percent for MLS, .3 percent for the USWNTPA, and .2 percent for the WNBA, according to one of the people briefed on the structure.<\/p>\n
Early this month, the FBI started calling MLB and NFL players or their representatives. Prosecutor David Berman is heading the federal investigation, said people briefed on its process who were not authorized to speak publicly.<\/p>\n
With a federal investigation underway, the NFLPA has retained outside counsel separate from the outside lawyers retained by its executive director, Howell. Howell\u2019s lawyer did not reply to requests for comment. \u201cWe\u2019re guided by our responsibility to our members in everything we do and we will continue to fully cooperate with the investigation,\u201d the NFLPA said in a statement to The Athletic.<\/p>\n
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MLBPA head Tony Clark was one of the forces behind the creation of OneTeam. (Sean M. Haffey \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n
The MLBPA declined to comment Friday. That union too has retained outside counsel separate from its leader, Clark. His attorney did not return requests for comment.<\/p>\n
The NFLPA official who voiced concern about the incentive plan wrote that they were concerned about the potential for various conflicts of interest. The official argued internally that the change to the plan could dilute the players\u2019 existing stakes, which they held via their unions. The official also questioned whether the players were informed of how their financial interests might be affected.<\/p>\n
The NFLPA official\u2019s email with lawyers shows talk of changing OneTeam\u2019s SEIP dated to 2023, when a new CEO took over. In March 2024, OneTeam asked outside counsel whether there would be any issues granting union officials on its board participation in a SEIP, according to the same email. In response, the official wrote, the law firm flagged concerns regarding the National Labor Relations Act were any units to be granted directly to union board members.<\/p>\n
Plans like SEIP are common in the business world. Companies use them to reward and lure top leaders, and the programs often grant traditional shares in a company. Private companies in particular will often grant something that operates similarly to shares but is not traditional equity, according to Chris Crawford, managing director for the executive compensation practice at the firm Gallagher.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not a publicly traded, readily tradable environment,\u201d Crawford said. \u201cIt gets into these third-party transactions that get a little bit messy. The most common is by a generic term called \u2018phantom stock.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Hence OneTeam\u2019s use of \u201cprofits units.\u201d<\/p>\n
But ultimately, OneTeam is not a common business because it is largely owned by unions. Union officials have legal obligations to their members and their members\u2019 interests, and most unions don\u2019t have for-profit arms with the overlay of those governance concerns.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe labor organizations\u2019 representatives on the OTP Board are there as FIDUCIARIES representing their union members\u2019 direct ownership interests in the Company \u2014 their legal duties are not to the Company generally, but rather their union members\u2019 ownership in the company,\u201d the NFLPA official wrote in the email to lawyers.<\/p>\n
The union officials have their positions on OneTeam\u2019s board because of their union roles, positions for which they are already compensated. Howell was paid $3.6 million by the NFLPA for the 12 months from March 2024 through February 2025, according to the union\u2019s annual disclosure filed with the Department of Labor. Clark was paid $3.5 million for the 2024 calendar year, per the baseball union\u2019s filing.<\/p>\n
The NFLPA has four seats on OneTeam\u2019s board, and the MLBPA has three seats. Both Howell\u2019s and Clark\u2019s signatures appear on the resolution to change OneTeam\u2019s senior employee incentive plan.<\/p>\n
The unions representing players in MLS, the USWNT and the WNBA share one seat on the board that rotates. Only the signature of Becca Roux, the head of the USWNTPA, appears on the resolution from last year.<\/p>\n
Roux, as well as Bob Foose, head of the MLSPA, and Terri Jackson, head of the WNBPA, have hired Steve McCool of McGuireWoods as outside counsel.<\/p>\n
\u201cI notified the prosecutor in New York that I represent a number of OTP board members,\u201d McCool said by phone Friday. \u201cMy clients have no cause for concern and they are available to answer any questions the government may have about this matter.\u201d<\/p>\n
Outside investors own the remaining 30 percent of OneTeam that is not owned by unions.<\/p>\n
The SEIP resolution called for the NFLPA to receive 44 percent of the new plan units available to the board, and the MLBPA 33 percent. The other three unions were in line to receive 3.7 percent each. The outside investors on the board were not going to receive any new incentive units, the resolution said.<\/p>\n
Such an arrangement has the potential to create at least the appearance of a conflict of interest, according to Lee Adler, a labor lawyer with no involvement in the matter who has long worked as counsel to unions.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs there something in that set of criteria for the incentive that might have some influence on how or what the union officials who sit on the board actually end up \u2026 legislating (at OneTeam)?\u201d asked Adler, a lecturer at the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations. NFLPA employees said at a meeting in November 2024 that they expected payments via SEIP would be $200,000 to $300,000, the NFLPA official wrote in the email.<\/p>\n
Sports unions have moved aggressively to capitalize on their players\u2019 branding rights. The MLBPA and NFLPA were among the founders of OneTeam in 2019. Both unions already had for-profit arms that handled licensing business, and those arms still exist today. But they were betting that a company with aggregated rights would have greater leverage.<\/p>\n
The venture has been a boon not only for the unions but also for the private equity investors who partnered with them. RedBird Capital cashed out its 40 percent stake in 2022, when the company had a $1.9 billion valuation.<\/p>\n
The windfalls from name, image and licensing rights carry a slew of gains for athletes, including bolstering traditional labor objectives like collective bargaining. The NFLPA reported about $101 million in revenue from OneTeam from early 2024 into 2025, and the MLBPA about $45 million for 2024. But both the baseball and football unions have been wrapped up in public controversy this year over, in part, OneTeam.<\/p>\n
Late last year, an anonymous complaint<\/a> filed with the National Labor Relations Board levied allegations at Clark, including concerns over equity from OneTeam. The football union, where internal complaints had already been lodged, then<\/a> brought on an outside firm, Linklaters, to conduct a review.<\/p>\n The NFLPA has not publicized that firm\u2019s findings. But in March, in an email reviewed by The Athletic, Howell notified OneTeam\u2019s board of directors that Linklaters found the NFLPA and OneTeam had been in compliance.<\/p>\n (Top photo of Lloyd Howell Jr.: Sean Gardner \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last June, eight members of the board of directors for a licensing group called OneTeam Partners, which is…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5184,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[1266,6656,1232,62,222,67,132,68,232],"class_list":{"0":"post-5183","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-mlb","9":"tag-mls","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-sports-business","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us","16":"tag-wnba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114726996783430660","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}