The glory days of the NFL were in the late 1950s and through the 60s. The league, which was just reaching its half century mark back then, was celebrating its tie in with network television and gaining a new fan base outside loyal, yet local fans. Now TV sports fans on the West Coast could watch snowy and blustery games out of the Midwest and marvel how hometown fans would sit through such conditions. It sparked a new kind of fan loyalty across the nation. Advertising and Madison Avenue caught hold of this fever and the game was changed forever.
Football could be played without fans in the stands. Does that sound more impossible or improbable? NFL football makes a huge revenue off of the almighty advertising dollar and marketing ties to its brand names. TV ratings spur the league today. The more people following the game, the more the league can charge for TV and radio ads. The more they can charge for banners and billboards that flank the walls and end zones. The more they can charge for jerseys, pennants and official league gear.
The NFL is very protective of its brand name and its image. It even has uniform "police" and league security task forces out there to make sure players, coaches and officials follow the league mandated rules, laws and guidelines. Breaking any of those will result in financial retribution levied as a fine or loss of compensation.
But the money that the NFL gets from advertising and from marketing does not mask the fact that when an NFL team lands in a selected market, they can mandate how that particular market must operate to keep that team. Play by the rules or your community will lose its beloved team!
Case in point! Indianapolis had a domed stadium in the heart of downtown Indianapolis. It was modern as most stadiums are these days, never had any real parking, and it was connected to the city's convention center. The stadium was built before the Colts arrived from Baltimore. Now 25 years later, to keep the Colts in Indianapolis, the Capital Improvement Board, which runs the convention center, along with the NCAA, strong armed the city to bill a 700 million dollar, state of the art, brand new stadium. The Colts could enjoy the revenues from tickets, concessions and stadium perks. But best of all, what all NFL owners prize from their stadiums, the revenue from the luxury boxes. Smaller stadiums may have 40 or 50 of these money makers, newer stadiums, like the Lucas Oil Stadium, can have over 100 and more. The revenue for these yearly contractual rentals does not go back into the till for taxpayer relief. The same taxpayers who were taxed to pay for the stadiums, but profits went straight into the owners and NFL coffers.
What are teams rewarded by having an NFL franchise in their city? Prestige? Hotel, taxi and restaurant profits? A new stadium that can house concerts and monster truck shows? The NFL touts that by having an NFL team in a city that it will bring a billion dollars a year in revenue to that city. Those numbers have yet to be verified by any specific unbiased report or survey.
The Super Bowl is the crowning jewel of the NFL season. But it will always be more an event than a game. The build up, the pomp and circumstance (better stated the connected advertising tie ins), and the betting far outweigh the game itself. People tune in for the game. But quite another number of people look in to see who is singing the national anthem and performing during the half time show.
Gambling is another economic aspect of the NFL. Baseball has long killed the careers of men who mixed betting with their sport. The NFL feels the same way, too. Thus, another aspect of a stringent in house security force. But that does not stop the league from posting the odds of that week's game in the newspaper and on TV. They don't just prognosticate who will win, but what Las Vegas and the gambling world will say they will win by in the final score! The league also helps football gamblers by announcing whose hurt and whose not in a timely (for the bettors) manner in a league injury report. As a fact, The Super Bowl is one of the largest betting days in the country, if not the world.
Does an NFL financially help or hinder a community? Depends on the franchise. A well run franchise can get the community to come together for charitable causes, as well as for playoffs. So there is good involved with what could be perceived as greed. But a bad franchise is just a license to make free money for the owner. Who cares if they win or lose? Just as long as the fans buy tickets! And if they stop buying tickets we will black them out in their local TV area. And if they still won't come to the games we will threaten to move the team away. And if that bluff does not work, we will play the "poor us" and demand retribution for lost revenue from city coffers. And if worse comes to worse, we will shanghai another city and land our tentacles deep into their back, as long as we can make up the revenue we deserve as stated in all the business forecasts league officials have projected.
There were days when fans felt part of the game. They knew that if a player got seriously injured, they would have to look for a "Joe" job like the rest of us poor working class slobs! Now new mega-millionaires are created every year, and we still have our Joe jobs.
The game has been changed forever. It is a business. It is big business. The economics of the game comes down to this, do you enjoy following the game on the sports page or the financial page of the paper?