The National Football league has been in business since 1920 and it has made tremendous strides. The NFL was founded in the small town of Canton, Ohio and it is now an international spectacle. Roughly 70,000 people flock to 16 NFL stadiums on a weekly basis to see massive men clash on the gridiron. The allure to many people with the National Football League is that the regular season is only 16 games. Of the 32 teams in the NFL only 12 of them qualify for the postseason with each playoff round being single-game elimination. Of the four major sports leagues in the United States (MLB, NBA, and NHL), the NFL is the most popular. The Super Bowl is seen in almost every country in the world while Super Bowl Sunday has become an unofficial holiday in the United States. The National Football League has a winning formula; so why would they want to mess with it?
When the NFL came into existence the team owners were businessmen, but they worked together for the betterment of the league. Today’s respective National Football League team owners are still businessmen, but each one is looking out solely for himself.
Former New York Giants owner Wellington Mara introduced the idea of revenue sharing to the NFL. Mara’s Giants played in the biggest media market in the world and it would have been very easy for him to look out solely for himself and his team. But Mara had a vision and he knew that the smaller market teams such as the Green Bay Packers would be unable to stay afloat without money from the teams in larger markets.
Former NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle introduced the idea of the major television networks bidding on the rights to televise games. CBS currently televises the AFC games while FOX is the home of the NFC coverage. NBC is the home of Sunday Night Football while ESPN televises Monday Night Football. Under their current agreements with the National Football League, CBS, FOX, and NBC are each paying the league $3 billion per year to televise games while ESPN is coughing up $1.9 billion. According to Forbes.com, the league made over $9 billion last year and current NFL commissioner Roger Goodell expects his football superpower to rake in $25 billion in revenue by 2027. But in my opinion the National Football League could be walking on an economic razor’s edge.
Roger Goodell
The NFL’s popularity is currently at an all-time high. But just like the stock market, the National Football League’s popularity could rise and fall. The NFL is coming under public scrutiny of how it has handled retiree benefits and concussions. Last year the National Football League agreed to give $765 million to more than 4,500 players in regards to concussion settlements. The players initially agreed to the figure, but they are now back in court seeking more money and rightfully so. Concussions and head injuries have been commonplace in the NFL. For years these brain injuries were misdiagnosed by physicians who were employed by the respective National Football League teams as their main job was to appease their respective employer; instead of honoring the Hippocratic Oath. These physicians sent players back onto the field with head injuries which would increase their chances of more brain trauma. To the untrained eye the NFL appeared to really care about compensating these former players and their families, but in actuality it was a “glorified low ball”. More than likely the National Football League will now have to pay in the billions to former players who suffered head injuries. Not to mention that player contracts in the NFL are not guaranteed.
During his tenure Goodell has been adamant about player safety, but that intense focus on the matter did not begin until Week 6 of the 2010 NFL season when several players were carted off of the field that Sunday after sustaining blows to the head which was highlighted (if you may) by former Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker James Harrison who knocked Cleveland Browns wide receivers Josh Cribbs and Mohamed Massaquoi out of the game with hits to the head. Harrison was not penalized during the game, but the NFL did fine him $75k. The only reason that Goodell fined Harrison was due to the fact that he was trying to keep the league’s image “clean”. If Goodell and the owners are “worried” about player safety why have they have also been pushing to add two more games to the regular season schedule?
After being questioned by the United States Congress, the National Football League is looking into potential testing for human growth hormones which could potentially blow the roof of the NFL as we know it. The NFL would be unable to survive if the majority of their players were to test positive for HGH.
Then there are those people (myself included) that question Goodell’s disciplinary tactics as he has been inconsistent. Since Goodell took office in 2006, he has suspended several players including giving cornerback Adam “Pacman” Jones and wide receiver Donte Stallworth season long suspensions. But this past spring Goodell failed to reprimand Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay following his arrest for DWI and possession of a controlled substance. Goodell came under fire last week for suspending Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice for two games following his arrest this past February for assaulting his then fiancee now wife Janay Palmer as some feel that the punishment was too light. But it was tough for Goodell and the National Football League to justify a longer suspension for Rice when the league failed to admonish Irsay when owners should be held to a higher standard.
Goodell and the NFL are also focusing on putting a franchise in London, England. Since 2007, the National Football League has had at least one regular season game in London. But for the upcoming season the NFL is scheduled to have three regular season games in the United Kingdom with the Atlanta Falcons and Detroit Lions set to meet there in Week 8 with the start of the game set for 9:30AM Eastern. The NFL has also thrown around the possibility of a Super Bowl being played in England. Since 2008, the Buffalo Bills have played one regular season game in Toronto, Canada at the Rogers Centre. Professional football is an American sport and pastime. Now the NFL is taking multiple games per year away from their American fans in favor of international money while 20 years have gone by without the league putting a franchise back in Los Angeles.
We live in a capitalistic society, but if you look at some of the great empires throughout global history, they fell when they got to greedy. With more research being done for head injuries, the rise in popularity for other sports in the United States such as soccer and basketball, along with less contact in football that will continue to result in inflated offensive statistics; it isn’t that far fetched to believe that the NFL could become stale within the next two to four decades. It might now come tomorrow, but lady luck could be ready to run out on the National Football League and it’s shield that Goodell is hell bent on protecting.
Source: Forbes.com
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