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Greg Bedard wrote about it last week – Roger Goodell is more entrenched than ever as NFL commissioner. How is this even possible? And why do football fans have to put up with this arrant nonsense?
It’s a common theme among media types and even some fans that Roger has done a great job for the owners because the league is growing rapidly and making gobs of money. Case in point, Jenny Vrentas in MMQB credited Goodell with overseeing “unprecedented” revenue growth.
With revenues projected to reach $13 billion in 2016, there’s no question that the league has grown. Is this growth unprecedented?
From 2001 to 2006, NFL revenues grew from $4.2 billion to $6.5 billion, a compound annual growth rate of 8.8%. By 2014, under Goodell’s stewardship, revenues grew to $11.1 billion in 2014, a lower growth rate of 6.8% annually. That’s right, NFL revenues did grow, but at a lower rate during Goodell’s tenure than the last five years under Paul Tagliabue.
During Goodell’s first five years (2006-2010), growth actually slowed to 6.3% annually, less than three-quarters of the pre-Roger growth rate. During this time, Roger was paid about $9.5 million per year. When the owners rewrote his contract effective in 2011, Roger’s total compensation more than tripled, averaging something like $35 million through 2015. It’s hard to understand why the savvy members of The Billionaires Boys Club gave away the store here, but that’s what they did. Were they afraid that another business would steal Roger away? Please.
No, the NFL owners, who hold themselves out as being among the most astute business people in the world, negotiated against themselves. During the ensuing labor negotiations and concussion litigation, it had to be galling for players, officials and disabled retirees to see the owners fighting tooth and nail for every last penny, so soon after bestowing such an undeserved financial windfall on their hand-picked Cabana Boy.
(Ed. Note: NFL yearly attendance being pretty reliably around 17 million, Roger’s paycheck can be viewed as a $2 fee on every ticket for every fan for every game. I don't know about you, but I want my money back.)
It is clear that the owners love Goodell. What is much less clear is - why? It’s almost unimaginable that there aren’t any number of competent executives who could produce comparable or (better yet) superior results for a smaller paycheck. You don’t have to be a Harvard MBA to know that hiring less competent help for more money is bad business. There’s no denying it.
What should be of grave concern to the owners is how quickly Goodell turned into a human wrecking ball after his new deal took effect in 2011. Since then, Roger has been up to his eyeballs in a series of monumental screw-ups that have damaged the reputation and the credibility of the league. You’d be hard pressed to identify a single situation that Goodell’s involvement hasn’t made worse. Yet, his apologists are routinely armed with a litany of rationalizations and excuses that only serve to underscore the lameness of their contention that Roger has any kind of any clue at all.
The sad fact of the matter is that Goodell is incompetent, overpaid and a world class prevaricator. In dealing with delicate business matters, his modus operandi has been to pull the pins out of as many hand grenades as he can find and then act surprised when things start exploding all around him. Even his supporters would admit that his public persona is obtuse, stubborn and condescending. And for the past decade, after regularly making a complete hash of things, he has been standing around with his hands in his pockets and a dumb look on his face while The NFL Money Train continues to roar through the station at an astonishing rate of speed. For this, Roger gets all of the credit and a Huge Paycheck.
Is Roger The Idiot Savant of Unprecedented Growth? It seems this is what the apologists and enablers would have us believe. Never mind all of the smoldering wreckage, broken furniture and mangled bodies lying around. Roger really is doing a great job. It’s the fans (and, I suppose, the players, coaches and officials) who don’t get it.
The Billionaire Boys Club is an insular environment where extreme wealth is all that matters. Money can be the single most addictive substance in the world; a tsunami of naked avarice overwhelmed NFL owners a long time ago. The owners are in love with Roger precisely because they sensed in him the same all-consuming greed they embrace every day.
In so doing, they bought into Roger’s absurd vision that this incredibly successful business enterprise needed, above all else, to grow massively bigger. And nothing - not the comfort of the fans, not the safety or dignity of the players, not the security of the disabled retirees who helped build the league into what it is today - can get in the way of that growth. Because when all is said and done, there is money, there is more money and there is even more money. Nothing else matters.
This is the very essence of the NFL’s very large problem known as Roger Goodell. Instead of introducing any sense of restraint and perspective, the Commissioner has successfully appealed to the owners’ very worst instincts. They are truly kindred spirits.
And this is why Roger Goodell stands to be the undoing of the great game of football.
It’s a common theme among media types and even some fans that Roger has done a great job for the owners because the league is growing rapidly and making gobs of money. Case in point, Jenny Vrentas in MMQB credited Goodell with overseeing “unprecedented” revenue growth.
With revenues projected to reach $13 billion in 2016, there’s no question that the league has grown. Is this growth unprecedented?
From 2001 to 2006, NFL revenues grew from $4.2 billion to $6.5 billion, a compound annual growth rate of 8.8%. By 2014, under Goodell’s stewardship, revenues grew to $11.1 billion in 2014, a lower growth rate of 6.8% annually. That’s right, NFL revenues did grow, but at a lower rate during Goodell’s tenure than the last five years under Paul Tagliabue.
During Goodell’s first five years (2006-2010), growth actually slowed to 6.3% annually, less than three-quarters of the pre-Roger growth rate. During this time, Roger was paid about $9.5 million per year. When the owners rewrote his contract effective in 2011, Roger’s total compensation more than tripled, averaging something like $35 million through 2015. It’s hard to understand why the savvy members of The Billionaires Boys Club gave away the store here, but that’s what they did. Were they afraid that another business would steal Roger away? Please.
No, the NFL owners, who hold themselves out as being among the most astute business people in the world, negotiated against themselves. During the ensuing labor negotiations and concussion litigation, it had to be galling for players, officials and disabled retirees to see the owners fighting tooth and nail for every last penny, so soon after bestowing such an undeserved financial windfall on their hand-picked Cabana Boy.
(Ed. Note: NFL yearly attendance being pretty reliably around 17 million, Roger’s paycheck can be viewed as a $2 fee on every ticket for every fan for every game. I don't know about you, but I want my money back.)
It is clear that the owners love Goodell. What is much less clear is - why? It’s almost unimaginable that there aren’t any number of competent executives who could produce comparable or (better yet) superior results for a smaller paycheck. You don’t have to be a Harvard MBA to know that hiring less competent help for more money is bad business. There’s no denying it.
What should be of grave concern to the owners is how quickly Goodell turned into a human wrecking ball after his new deal took effect in 2011. Since then, Roger has been up to his eyeballs in a series of monumental screw-ups that have damaged the reputation and the credibility of the league. You’d be hard pressed to identify a single situation that Goodell’s involvement hasn’t made worse. Yet, his apologists are routinely armed with a litany of rationalizations and excuses that only serve to underscore the lameness of their contention that Roger has any kind of any clue at all.
The sad fact of the matter is that Goodell is incompetent, overpaid and a world class prevaricator. In dealing with delicate business matters, his modus operandi has been to pull the pins out of as many hand grenades as he can find and then act surprised when things start exploding all around him. Even his supporters would admit that his public persona is obtuse, stubborn and condescending. And for the past decade, after regularly making a complete hash of things, he has been standing around with his hands in his pockets and a dumb look on his face while The NFL Money Train continues to roar through the station at an astonishing rate of speed. For this, Roger gets all of the credit and a Huge Paycheck.
Is Roger The Idiot Savant of Unprecedented Growth? It seems this is what the apologists and enablers would have us believe. Never mind all of the smoldering wreckage, broken furniture and mangled bodies lying around. Roger really is doing a great job. It’s the fans (and, I suppose, the players, coaches and officials) who don’t get it.
The Billionaire Boys Club is an insular environment where extreme wealth is all that matters. Money can be the single most addictive substance in the world; a tsunami of naked avarice overwhelmed NFL owners a long time ago. The owners are in love with Roger precisely because they sensed in him the same all-consuming greed they embrace every day.
In so doing, they bought into Roger’s absurd vision that this incredibly successful business enterprise needed, above all else, to grow massively bigger. And nothing - not the comfort of the fans, not the safety or dignity of the players, not the security of the disabled retirees who helped build the league into what it is today - can get in the way of that growth. Because when all is said and done, there is money, there is more money and there is even more money. Nothing else matters.
This is the very essence of the NFL’s very large problem known as Roger Goodell. Instead of introducing any sense of restraint and perspective, the Commissioner has successfully appealed to the owners’ very worst instincts. They are truly kindred spirits.
And this is why Roger Goodell stands to be the undoing of the great game of football.
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