Before reading this I must warn you: it’s rather depressing. It’s a very inconvenient and awful truth about the prospects of the 2011 NFL season. I hope you aren’t in a dark, gloomy and cold place right now.
Coupled with the prospect of losing the next NBA season to a lockout…well, if you’re complaining about how bad your team is now, wait until...to quote ’90s R&B artist Jodeci (actually quoting Bobby Womack since they covered him) “if you think you’re lonely now, wait until tonight.”
Remember how you felt when the NFL season ended last Feburary? This Debbie Downer piece from Docksquad Sports is a must-read, because it gives you the skinny on the league’s revenue sharing agreement. You don’t need to have a MBA or job at Charles Schwab to read it.
The article is penned by a Chicago litigation and labor attorney, but you don’t need a Doctorate of Jurisprudence to appreciate it.
(And yes, I quoted both Jodeci and Bobby Womack in the same article, but you can scrutinize my taste in music later)
Many fans are misinformed about what’s about to go down because the information seems intimidating, but it’s not, especially in this post.
Here’s an excerpt of the 101:
The main source of revenue is television contracts. As of today, the NFL receives $3.085 billion a year from the major television networks such as CBS, FOX, NBC and ESPN. It is a staggering sum when you consider that in 1982, the NFL received only $482 million dollars a year from NBC, CBS and ABC for the right to broadcast NFL games.
Interestingly, the owners have structured the television contracts so that in case the players are locked out or they go on strike, the NFL will still collect $3.085 billion per year. The broadcast companies will receive “credit” that will be used in the future. The NFLPA has filed suit against the NFL to either stop payments or to at least receive a fair share in the meantime.
Interesting point below. It has ALWAYS SICKENED me that we pay for these stadiums with our hard-earned tax dollars. And they have the nerve to charge us ridiculous money for admission! Think about that! Our money goes to parks, hospitals, roads, public spaces- now imagine if they charged $70 a pop to use them. It’s true for sports franchise owners: they socialize risk and privatize profit- just like all the bailed out investment banks!
Who do they think they are, Goldman Sachs! For more on this read Dave Zirin’s “Bad Sports: How Owners are ruining the
Now many of you reading this may be saying that this is their business. As business owners, they get to keep the profit but also have to incur losses should a franchise’s costs exceed revenues. However, it is a fallacy to believe that owners take on all the risk. For example, many of the NFL teams play in stadiums that are built with taxpayer dollars. Yet when the owners lock out the players and there is no football on Sundays, it is the taxpayers and not the owners that will have to pay to maintain these empty stadiums.
Paul M. Banks is CEO of The Sports Bank.net , a Midwest webzine. He’s also a regular contributor to the Tribune’s Chicago Now network, Walter Football.com, Yardbarker Network, and Fox Sports.com
You can follow him on Twitter @thesportsbank