Giants CEO John Mara was instrumental in ending NFL lockout - Ingles

He was trapped in a small boardroom all day, with tempers rising and even a few tears shed as he tried to negotiate a deal that pleased everyone, as lives hung in the balance.

And this was before John Mara helped save the 2011 NFL season.

This was at a federal courthouse in Manhattan . He was not the Giants’ CEO here. He was Juror No. 1, for one ill-timed month, with four defendants facing international drug conspiracy charges.

“I thought to myself as I was sitting there in the jury pool, ‘What are the chances? What are the chances?’” Mara said. “They already had a jury picked and they were looking for the last alternate.

“I walked up there with 25 people and” — he snaps his fingers — “I’m the first name picked and both attorneys were out of challenges.”

How did you spend your spring and summer? Mara spent his behind closed doors in tense negotiations. He spent it alternating between hopeful and frustrated, angry and — finally — relieved.

Mara, according to people on both sides of the NFL labor dispute, was instrumental in ending the lockout and ensuring labor peace for the next 10 years. That’s reason enough to put him in the top spot on the “Juice List,” our third-annual ranking of the most influential people in New Jersey sports.

But Mara did more than help solve the impasse that threatened the 2011 season. He and co-owner Steve Tisch treated their employees with respect, avoiding the furloughs that other teams (including the Jets, who paid them back with interest when the lockout ended) used.

“I thought it was the right thing to do,” Mara said. “The way we looked at it was, none of the people who work here had caused this lockout. It was a decision by ownership. We weren’t going to make the suffer because of it.”

And the Giants were also the only team that allowed season-ticket holders to hold off on their payments until the lockout ended. That’s leadership by example, and it set Mara apart.

“We’ve asked an awful lot of our ticket-holders over the last couple years with the PSL program,” he said, “and we thought this was a gesture we needed to make. It ended up working well.”

Some fans, of course, are still angry about those PSLs — and always will be. Mara isn’t doing this for charity. He’s a businessman, and fought as hard as any of his fellow owners for a collective bargaining agreement that gave them a bigger share of the league’s $9 billion in revenues.

In the exclusive club of NFL owners, however, Mara is regarded as a moderate. He was not looking for a victory lap over the players during this process. He wanted a better deal. And he wanted an intact 2011 season.

“I did believe there was certain aspects of it that needed to change, but I did not want to miss any games,” Mara said. “I knew most of the owners were prepared to miss games, and I was too if we absolutely had to, but I just felt like, when the calendar started creeping up on us, both sides would be ready to make a deal.”

Mara, whose decision to become a labor lawyer was influenced by seeing his father, Wellington , engage in labor battles a generation ago, spent more time on the negotiations than any other owner.

It took dozens of men coming together to end the lockout, but in our corner of the country, it was Mara who had the most influence in assuring an uninterrupted football season.

And the labor peace assures that, in 2½ years, the new stadium he spearheaded will host the Super Bowl — an event that figures to be the biggest single sports event in state history, and one his clout helped bring here.

Most fans already have forgotten the 136 days and the threats to shut down the sport into the fall. Mara was in his office last week, answering letters from a few who were concerned that the team — in the middle of a rocky offseason — was doing too little to improve.

“I’ll deal with that every time,” the newest No. 1 on the Juice List said with a smile, because even hearing from frustrated fans beats a summer spent in boardrooms locked in tense negotiations. (source Newark Star Ledger)