Culture Bully Saves the NFL
It’s always a concern when I sit down to write these things that I’m going over old ground and will end up ranting about the same subjects again and again. Fortunately — a two-fold positive side effect of my ongoing descent into age-related madness — I no longer care, and even if I did, I’m forgetful enough to not notice.
You know how far off the hipster pace I am? Last weekend, I went to see James Taylor in concert with, amongst others, my mother (in my defense, it was for her birthday). If I were any more cutting-edge I’d be kept in a sheath. Funnily enough, Taylor talked about — instead of having written 150 songs — how he’s written the same 10 songs 15 over. There you go, the man who puts the “sex” in “sexagenarian” (according to my mum, anyway) and I are in agreement. So there.
Anyway, all three of you regular readers (it used to be just both of you, until Chris was forced into proofreading) will be aware of my consternation at sports franchises and their blatant disregard of what fans want; be it ticket prices, kick-off times or their treatment of spectators, to name but three. It’s even more mystifying when the economy is in the toilet. I touched on the problems facing soccer in Scotland in a previous entry, particularly when compared to (and competing with) their English neighbors. The financial disparities are now all but insurmountable with some Scottish top-flight clubs losing out on players to League 2 and non-league (the fourth and fifth tier) teams in England, due to affordability of wages.
One league that continues to prosper financially is the National Football League, which makes the current lockout/labor dispute/greedathon all the more unforgivable. The “millionaires arguing with billionaires” line has been trotted out far too often to repeat here, so I’ll leave it to the Washington Post’s Sally Jenkins to put across how I feel; not that I often agree with her!
However, as I said, the time for recrimination is over. As reports of negotiations leak out, teasing NFL fans with the idea of a 2011 season, the good people at Culture Bully (actually, just me) bring to you, the people, some positive suggestions on how to make the league better and, hopefully, avoid any future lockout-related unpleasantness. After all, we don’t want a disaster on our hands like the one the NBA is facing, do we?
I know what you’re thinking. Why should a group of billionaires, at the head of the richest sports organization on the planet, listen to an under qualified gobshite like me? (Answer at the end of the article, folks.) I have no financial nous. In fact, I’m so poor, even the IMF wouldn’t lend me money (though, disturbingly, they offered me a job and sent me a uniform before I could turn them down), but there are a couple of seemingly obvious ideas that could ease the worries of both sides. When a business or individual is concerned with finance the two obvious courses of action are to either decrease costs or increase revenue. These are easier said than done for mere mortals like us, but the NFL has a number of options. The owners want to increase revenue by going to an eighteen game regular season and the players don’t want this. The solution? A sixteen game season, played over nineteen weeks.
Hear me out.
NFL fans have generally been against extra games (player safety, increased chances of dead rubber matches at the end of the season), but we all complain that the season is over too quickly. A nineteen week schedule makes the season a bit longer without overdoing it, or creeping into other sports’ territory, though this could be avoided by shortening the preseason. Why nineteen, you ask?
Week ten (the halfway point of the season) would have no games. Fans in need of content could easily be served by a wrap-up/highlights show; for their team, division, conference or the entire league. Knowing that there was one rest week set in stone every year would help teams prepare and rest up better. There would also be no single team at a disadvantage with this, as there often is with bye weeks. Speaking of which, every team would get a bye week in each half of this newly bisected season, split between say, weeks four and seven and weeks thirteen and sixteen. Player health and recovery from injury is a major issue and this arrangement would give teams a better chance to manage the health of their rosters than they have now.
Another advantage of this idea is that, although the owners would miss out on an additional home game, the extra weeks of televised matchups would make their bargaining position with the networks stronger. As long as revenue sharing is still a part of any brave new NFL world (and I’ve heard nothing to the contrary), then the money should still be decent for all of the teams, without the need to host additional games which, while profitable, still cost money to stage. Another thing that makes the NFL special is the fact that every game is an event, and going to eighteen dilutes that.
The NFL also benefits from having the strongest brand, as a league, so the bye weeks can be used to generate interest in the overall product. Many fans, while partisan about their teams, will be happy to watch other games when their teams aren’t on; they do it every week when they watch the early and late kick-offs on a Sunday and the Monday night game. The NFL’s recent decision to introduce a Thursday night slate is evidence that they think this model can work, as is the success of the (phenomenally good) Red Zone channel.
As far as I can see, there would be nothing to stop teams organizing events for their fans during bye-weeks, either at the stadium, or in the community. Could teams show away games in their home stadia? It might help pay for those huge HD screens that everyone’s putting up. Being cynical, I could see certain owners getting around revenue sharing this way. Another advantage of three bye weeks would be in the home. Think of it as a peace offering, NFL fans! Three times during the season you could, I don’t know, spend time with your family? That might almost make it up to them for all the weeks of planting yourself in front of the TV…
Often the simplest ideas are the best; the NFL maximizes revenue, the television companies sell more advertising and the players share the pot, without further risk to their health. This idea is clearly worth billions but as a fan (the reason I referred to earlier why the league should be listening — the fans have been ignored throughout this unseemly stand-off) I give it to you gratis. Feel the love…
Though you, Roger Goodell, can send me money if you feel the need.
[This article was written by guest contributor Stephen Beagrie.]
