The Arizona Cardinals are in the middle of a rebuilding season on the field, but a new report suggests that things have been dicey in the front office for a while now.
The Cardinals are accused of having a culture issue driven by the maltreatment coming from owner Michael Bidwill, according to a report by ESPN on Wednesday.
The ESPN report included interviews from over three dozen current and former Cardinals employees, with its main source being the team’s former executive vice president and chief operating officer Ron Minegar.
“He’s a yeller. He’s just miserable to people,” Minegar told ESPN. “There is a deep culture problem, and in my mind it emanates from one source.”
Minegar was humiliated through in what ESPN described as a “profanity-laced tirade” in front of Cardinals staffers at the Tempe facility after he was arrested for drunk driving midway through the 2019 season. He said he thought it was “justifiable,” but that it did go “over the top.”
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Other sources described the scene as “uncomfortable” to ESPN.
The report comes after former Cardinals vice president of player personnel Terry McDonough filed an arbitration complaint against the team that included accusations of discrimination and harassment.
The Cardinals have denied the allegations, and Minegar and other human resources executives on the team reportedly never witnessed racist acts by the owner. But ESPN said interviews with their numerous sources painted the picture of a difficult workplace environment driven by what the report called “the owner’s unpredictable tirades.”
McDonough’s complaint reportedly alleged that Bidwill cursed at a Black employee “in a racially charged manner.”
Three sources told ESPN that the accusation stems from a parking spot incident at the team facility and the team’s former head coach Steve Wilks said in August that the tirade of Bidwell was toward team scout Alfonza Knight.
Knight is still a member of the Cardinals and did not comment on ESPN’s story.
But the Cardinals’ chief people officer Shaun Mayo told ESPN that the 37% of the hires in its business side are people of color, including himself.
Minegar said that the doesn’t believe Bidwell is “racist” rather that he’s an “equal opportunity offender.”
The report said that several women described a discriminatory culture, which included access to certain areas of the team’s Tempe, Arizona facility. One instance described is that women were not allowed access to a specific stairwell that connects the offices to football spaces below — with the primary reason being to avoid additional contact with players.
Another example was that men in the front office were reportedly allowed to use weight rooms that players would use, but women were not given the same access. ESPN described several more instances, including cubicle extensions to avoid more contact between women and players
One former employee described the environment as “sexist” and “misogynistic.”
According to Minegar, he conducted a “cultural assessment” survey in 2019 of the Cardinals employees and found that employees were “working in fear” and that most of that fear stemmed from Bidwell.
Minegar eventually handed a letter to Bidwell that he had prepared for months in 2019. It ended up as his demise with the franchise.
“Your negativity sucks the life out of the entire process and erodes our collective resolve to work our asses off for you and this franchise,” Minegar wrote. “It’s not just me — everyone in this building is impacted by your constant negativity.
Many staffers became fearful once Minegar had left, with one saying that Minegar “protected” a lot of people from Bidwell.
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According to statement from the Bidwell given to ESPN, the team is actively working on ways to improve its culture.
“We have more to do and, as I have said to every member of the Cardinals organization, that includes my own work to grow and improve as a leader,” Bidwill said in the statement.
“The truth is that we are a different organization today than we were just a few years ago and extremely different from the club I grew up around in terms of business practices, sense of community and overall structure. I’m confident that we have the right team in place and the commitment to continue on our path to building the best organization possible.”
Bidwell has reportedly been taking leadership classes since March which the team has required for its high-level employees. The team also hired third-party consultants to help craft “core values” for the organization.
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