In just over
one year’s time, 3 NFL teams have signed papers to relocate their franchises. Last year the Rams started the trend back up
again (this has been a common, yet puzzling trend over the history of the NFL)
by moving from St. Louis back to Los Angeles after a 21 year stay in the
Midwest. Now this offseason, we have already had the Chargers announcing a move
to Los Angeles and the Raiders agreeing to move to Las Vegas.
First things
first, Los Angeles has done fine without a football team. The reason why LA has done fine without a
football team is simple, most people in LA aren’t from LA. The people living in and around LA aren’t
born and raised in Southern California, they are from Milwaukee, Boston,
Philadelphia, Chicago, and Pittsburgh.
In LA they have the freedom of watching their teams when they are on,
because every game is on in LA. As a
matter of fact, based on Steelersbars.com, there are 37 Steeler bars in and
around the LA area. Sure the residents
of Southern California love their NFL, but they love their own NFL teams. Now, with the Chargers moving to town, the CBS and FOX games will no longer be the national games, it will be the Rams
and Chargers every week. So, yes the NFL
adds the 2nd largest television market in the country, but guess
what, those people were watching the game already. In all likelihood, the ratings in the LA area
will go down. Because now, instead of
watching the Game of the Week between the Cowboys and Packers on FOX, they are
stuck watching the St. Louis Los Angeles Rams.
What makes
this worse is that fans in San Diego, St. Louis and Oakland are losing their
teams for one reason and one reason alone, GREED. The billionaire owners of these teams, that
basically are printing money at this point, with the amount of revenue that the
league now has, wanted new stadiums and held the fans and cities hostage over
who should pay for the new stadiums. The
cities and fans rightly stood their ground and now the owners are leaving.
Now the
solution.
When a team
relocates, they have to pay a relocation fee to the other owners of the
NFL. That fee is $500 million, which
divided evenly to the other 31 owners is just over $16.1M a piece. If you are wondering why the other owners
approve these team relocating, now you know.
The $500M fee is essentially a $16.1M bribe to vote in favor of the
relocation.
Here is how
to fix this trend. The NFL owners loan
the money to the owners/teams to build their own stadium.
According to
Forbes, going into the 2016 NFL season the average value of an NFL team was a
record high, $2.34 Billion. Billion with a B!
In 2015, 30 of the 32 teams made at least $50M, with the Cowboys leading
the way, banking $300M. These owners
have the money to help out the other owners.
After all, they are one big team, right?
If each owner loaned that same $16.1M we talked about before and you add
it to the $500M that the relocating owner was willing to hand over to relocate,
you have ONE BILLION DOLLARS to build a new stadium. This can be done, all while staying in the city and with the
fans that have supported you for so many years.
I know that
this won’t happen, and it is for the same reason I mentioned before,
GREED. But for the good of the NFL, it
should happen.
In business,
marketing can make or break a business.
Is Phil Knight and Nike where they are today without Michael Jordan,
the Swoosh or Tiger Woods? NO!
Moving these
teams all over the map is bad marketing for the NFL and bad for business. The NFL is taking 3 cities and fan-bases and
making them castoffs, basically telling the cities of St. Louis, Oakland and
San Diego, that they aren’t wanted. Will
the people of St. Louis want to consume the NFL product after that message? I
doubt it.
Even worse,
the NFL is moving those franchises to cities that don’t want these teams to begin
with. Los Angeles is the 2nd
largest city in the country, if they wanted football in Los Angeles it would
have been there already. It would never
have left 21 years ago.
And who exactly
is going to pack the stadiums in LA and Las Vegas when these team move? I’ll tell you who, fans from the visiting
teams. The fans that fill those 37
Steeler bars in LA, will pack the LA Coliseum the next time the Steelers are in
town. And that will happen with every
other team in the leagues fan-base too. How
about Las Vegas? Talk about a great road
trip game to go to! Go to Vegas and
watch your favorite NFL team, done!
A few years
back, billionaire business man and owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, Mark Cuban was criticized for saying that the NFL was a balloon ready to burst, and
that they were getting too big for their own good. Cuban is a smart man. After a season where TV ratings, game
attendance and cost of Super Bowl tickets were all way down from the previous
season, it might be a good idea for the NFL and their owners to start caring about
their consumer, otherwise Cuban is going to be exactly right.
