Roger Goodell Addresses Giants Co-Owner Steve Tisch’s Emails With Jeffrey Epstein

Roger Goodell’s press conference Monday at Super Bowl LX touched on a subject he was likely hoping to avoid this week.

The NFL’s commissioner was asked about recent revelations that showed New York Giants co-owner Steve Tisch had a relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

When asked about the Tisch-Epstein connection, Goodell claimed the league was looking into it, and he wanted to get the facts first before addressing whether or not Tisch would be subject to discipline under the league’s personal conduct policy.

“Well, you may be getting ahead of yourself on the second part, but I would say that absolutely we are going to look at all the facts,” Goodell said. “We're going to look at the context of those, we're going to try to understand that, and we'll look at how that falls under the policy. But I think we take one step at a time. Let's get the facts first.”

Tisch’s name surfaced in the latest dump of files related to Epstein released by the Department of Justice on Friday. In the relevant emails from 2013, Epstein and Tisch discussed multiple women, as Epstein actively worked to connect the billionaire to them. Several emails reviewed by The Athletic show the two men engaging in discussions about setting up meetings with women, and lewd discussions about their physical features. Tisch’s name appeared at least 440 times in the more than three million pages of documents released last week.

At one point, Tisch offered Epstein two tickets to his suite at MetLife Stadium, and Epstein responded by inviting him to his private Caribbean island. It is not clear if Tisch actually visited the island.

Tisch sent a statement to The Athletic last Friday, addressing his relationship with Epstein.

We had a brief association where we exchanged emails about adult women, and in addition, we discussed movies, philanthropy, and investments. I did not take him up on any of his invitations and never went to his island. As we all know now, he was a terrible person and someone I deeply regret associating with.

The NFL released a statement on Monday saying, “The league is aware of the reports and Steve's response. Our office will look into the matter to understand the facts.”

Tisch’s father, Preston Robert Tisch, bought 50% of the Giants in 1991, and the family has owned it ever since. Ownership of the team passed to Steve in 2005, when Preston died from brain cancer. He co-owns the franchise with John Mara.

It is unclear whether the NFL could levy any punishment on the 76-year-old Tisch or force him to sell the team because of his relationship with Epstein.

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