7 seasons as an NFL lobbyist

Jonathan Navabi, vice president of public policy and government affairs for the National Football League, no longer measures his life in years. He measures it seasonally.

Navavi has been in the NFL for seven seasons and is part of a team that has helped professional sports leagues navigate the rise of sports betting, a global pandemic, flag football’s first Olympics in 2028, and, of course, the Super Bowl.

Navabi described the NFL as “America’s convening force” after conspiracy theories threatened to engulf this year’s Super Bowl.

“Everyone is interested in the NFL, everyone talks about the NFL, everyone watches the NFL. It’s one of those truly classic cultural touchstones that permeates every aspect of American life.” Navavi, a former center for the Penn State Nittany Lions football team, told The Hill.

Navabi remembers hearing Penn State football games in his childhood home of State College, Pennsylvania, which developed his love for the game at an early age. Navabi said she and her younger brother were in medical school at Penn State University and she always asked her father to buy her tickets to games because “she wasn’t a football fan.” she said.

However, once he got the chance to play for the Nittany Lions, he spent a lot of time at Beaver Stadium, leading a scout team that played against future NFL heavyweights including LaVar Arrington and Courtney Brown. .

Off the field, Navavi was an honors student studying political science and international relations.

“I guess I ended up coming here because I loved history and politics. I ended up going to law school because my friends were training to go pro or to the NFL. ” Nabavi said.

After studying French at Paris-Sorbonne University, Nabavi moved to Washington and enrolled in law school at George Washington University.

Nabavi said the school was a great place for her to explore her interest in policy and politics, and she quickly began working on political campaigns and office work. He soon found work at the Capitol, where he would spend the next ten years of his life.

Navabi eventually became an advisor to most of the staff on the Senate Judiciary Committee under then-chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), a position he called “total privilege.” I commented.

Asked what advice he would give to young people starting their careers in Washington, Navavi said, “If you know what you want to do, pursue it.”

“I avoided the big corporate path because ultimately this is where I wanted to be. I’ve been really lucky to have had a good and enjoyable career,” he said. “Yes, make a living, but do what you want. That’s what his 20s mean in Washington, D.C., right?”

“You don’t have to put yourself on a timeline,” he added. “Working on the Hill is an absolute privilege. It’s hard work and it probably doesn’t pay the best, but whatever you do, you’re going to look back on it fondly, so don’t get too worked up about it.” Please don’t quit.”

Navabi finally got his chance in 2017, more than a decade after some of his former teammates pursued careers in the NFL.

“If you have the opportunity to cooperate with our promotion, [football] And making that process happen and making football work, I’m going to jump on it,” Navabi said when asked about his decision to leave Hill.

Not long after Navabi started working for the NFL, the Supreme Court struck down a federal law that prohibited states from offering legal sports betting. Since the decision was made in May 2018, 38 states and Washington, D.C., have given the green light to some form of sports betting.

“At the time, we were very reluctant to see sports betting become widespread, because we were concerned about issues that would affect the integrity of the game,” said a small team visiting “more mature markets.” said Navabi, who joined the group. Come up with a game plan, including London.

But Navabi said the NFL, which has now started sportsbook partnerships with betting giants like Caesars, DraftKings and FanDuel, is in a “very good place” as the country and professional sports navigate a period of transition. .

He had to allay similar concerns from lawmakers, including Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.), co-chair of the Congressional Gaming Caucus.

Titus sent a letter Last June, he asked NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell for transparency into sports league betting policies for athletes and staff. The league then announced increased penalties for players who bet on NFL games, which Titus called “a step in the right direction.”

Nabavi is also working with lawmakers to develop a pilot program to combat the proliferation of drones illegally flying over stadiums, which would require authorities to cancel nationally televised events and take precautions to ensure safety. They are forced to raise their players.

Federal law only authorizes the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to shoot down these potentially dangerous drones. The NFL and other sports leagues, including Major League Baseball, the National Collegiate Athletic Association, and NASCAR, support defending our homeland from the threats posed by the Unmanned Aircraft Systems Act of 2023. This expands the authority of state and local law enforcement agencies and allows owners and operators of critical infrastructure, such as airports, to use DHS-approved drone detection and mitigation technology.

Navavi said that as it stands, the FBI and DHS do not have the resources to regularly send anti-drone teams to games, and last year only about 70 out of more than 100,000 requests for drone enforcement teams were fulfilled. He pointed out.

Navabi said he is also working on supporting the AED Access Act. The law would provide funding for schools to purchase life-saving defibrillators and train them to respond to sudden cardiac arrests like the one suffered by Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin last January. It is.

Navabi said the “horrifying” incident, which he watched from his home in Washington, made him realize the league could do more than just the professionals to protect the health and safety of players.

“[Hamlin] I was able to survive because of the incredible training and the process that was in place around that, but for me, like this is a problem with youth sports, you don’t necessarily have those things at hand. I realized that I wasn’t always there,” Navavi said.

After nearly 20 years in Washington, Navavi is entering a different season in life. When he’s not working, he likes to rest and recharge, taking his daughters to their favorite breakfast spot on Saturday mornings and taking his wife, who comes from a “big Patriots family,” to the grocery store. I’ll take you to the bowl.

And Navavi, who stopped playing tailgating after years of playing, described his favorite tailgating tradition as the calm before the storm.

“It’s like an early morning coffee when no one is around. It’s quiet, it’s a little cold, so you might take out the newspaper or just sit there,” Navavi said. “We know we have a great day of football ahead of us, but it’s all in front of us.”