Is our ownership being jerks?

[JR4]

W........Don't post here. Go post on the Bills forum or Jacksonville or St, Louis. Just leave. Don't let the door hit in the ***** on the way. Moron.

What gives you the right to tell people to get out of here? primetime is
probably as big a Patriot fan as you are. He has an opinion so why not
let him express it without your attack on his Patriotism?
To call him a "Moron" reveals your character more than you apparently realize.
It is his OPINION. which he has as much right to express here as you do. JMO.

 

[ClosingTime]

Without getting into the details, a lot of you are approaching this question all wrong. The question is not: is it fair that some teams contribute more to a general pool to be divided than other teams? (though an analogy to general tax structure would say yes). The question is: how do maintain thew competitive balance that has made the NFL the best sport in the country? If some teams have more money to spend, what has made the NFL so popular will disappear and it could, over time, become the joke that is Major League Baseball. (sorry to all red Sox fans but you know it's true). And instead of small market teams that do manage and market their teams well being able to compete, you'll have a market determined by the Daniel Snyder's of the league.
If you are inclined to only think about it from your own teams perspective, the Pats themselves are in a tenative situation. As has been pointed out, they haven't always been part of the "haves" and their position as such is not solidified for the future. A string of bad years, inevitable to every team, could find the Pats on the other side of the coin.

 

[PatsRI]

When these small market teams have shown that they have tried to maximize any potential source of revenue, then and only then will I feel sorry for them. We all kind of laughed when Gillette was built and Ford sponsored the parking lots and each gate and ramp had a different sponsor. McDonalds in a football stadium? Now I think we all, well almost all, understand that Kraft was being a good business man. Brown and Wilson won't even sell the naming rights, ok I can let that slide maybe but you can't tell me that there are no Ford dealers, .com companies, or banks that wouldn't love to get thier names out there in Cincy or Buffalo. They may not get as much as Kraft gets but at least make the attempt. If you look at comparisons of the stadiums (Brown: http://www.bengals.com/stadium/paulbrownstadium.asp, Gillette: http://www.patriots.com/stadium/index.cfm?ac=factchart ) itseems that Brown has more Club seats 7600 to 6000 and Suites 114 to 86. Gillette has a higher capacity 68,756 to 65,535 but regular gates are shared. My philosophy is if your team hadn't sucked for the past 10+ years then you should be getting some good revenue from those Suites. Kraft did it the right way, make a committment to making the team on the field better at the same time put on the full court press to sell that new/better product to fans and businesses. It's simple, fans know when an owner is (Kraft and the Sox Henry group) and is not (Jacobs) out to impove the team. When they sense that committment they stick with it (the Pete Carroll years) and support it financially. Have Brown's revenues gone up since hiring Lewis and this year making the playoffs? I'm willing to bet they have. Indy is near the bottom now but with the new stadium being built I'm also willing to bet they will shoot near the top. Tampa and Green Bay aren't what I'd call big markets but they hold up thier end of the revenues. Tampa? The joke of the league for 20 years? Why? Because new owners made the decision to invest in his team, not rely on NFL welfare.

 

[bosfan]

Why do I feel betrayed by the Krafts being one of the "haves" that are refusing to budge on this relatively small sum of shared revenue? It wasn't so long ago that the Patriots were a team rumored to be moving to every empty market in the country because New England couldn't support a team and the ownership was a total laughingstock. Now our owners are amongst the ones willing to risk lockouts over a small amount of revenue? I'm not sure if I can stand behind the Krafts on this one.

This is a great example of how a 'Provocative' subject line gets the response - just the way the 'Media' does it. If you had been reading all the posts on this subject and there are two more exellent ones this morning, then you would understand the situation and would not find it necessary to show how uninformed you are.

 

[BradyisGod]

Without getting into the details, a lot of you are approaching this question all wrong. The question is not: is it fair that some teams contribute more to a general pool to be divided than other teams? (though an analogy to general tax structure would say yes). The question is: how do maintain thew competitive balance that has made the NFL the best sport in the country? If some teams have more money to spend, what has made the NFL so popular will disappear and it could, over time, become the joke that is Major League Baseball. (sorry to all red Sox fans but you know it's true). And instead of small market teams that do manage and market their teams well being able to compete, you'll have a market determined by the Daniel Snyder's of the league.
If you are inclined to only think about it from your own teams perspective, the Pats themselves are in a tenative situation. As has been pointed out, they haven't always been part of the "haves" and their position as such is not solidified for the future. A string of bad years, inevitable to every team, could find the Pats on the other side of the coin.

I wish people would stop breaking out the baseball analogy. It's too simplistic. With a cap in place, one of the few things that need to be worked out is the cash over cap situation.

SO, the NFL and the MLB are CONTINENTS apart when it comes to their financial structure, not inches like so many people will have you believe. It would be a long slide to get to the wreck that is the MLB.

Again, "not to get into the details" but there needs to be some minimum effort made on the part of these "small market teams". They also need to think about debt. Whatever. The point has been made a thousand times. Is it fair that the Colts are now going to have a new stadium, basically free, and Patriots still have to take some of their REVENUE and pay back the debt for building theirs?

 

[sdaniels7114]

I skipped over some of the flaming here so if what I say has been already brought up I apologise. Its my understanding that 2% of the pie is equal to roughly $300,000,000/yr. That's a lot of money to anyone.

I also figure that the Sullivans fumbled around for 30 years always blaming their woes on an inadequate market. Now the Krafts have managed to make quite a pile out of it. Nobody can convince me that Greenbay or Buffalo or Cleveland fans aren't ravenous enough. You just have to give them a tiny shred of hope and they are all over the product.

I think the biggest problem with the NFL is that teams are 'owned' individually. Those that want to sit on things and not push forward, say a lazy heir who just wants the cachet of owning a Football franchise for example, need to be squeezed out in favor of actual business people who want to make their investment grow.

 

[ClosingTime]

I realize they are in two different situations but the analogy still stands. Baseball has a cap too technically. The fact is, if one team can spend more than another that is an unfair edge. Why should some bozo like Snyder be able to build a more competitive team than the Steelers, Green Bay, etc, just because they have more money?
And it's no small point that without revenue sharing teams will likely jack ticket prices up so much that the average fan will not be able to attend a game.

 

[dhamz]

And instead of small market teams that do manage and market their teams well being able to compete, you'll have a market determined by the Daniel Snyder's of the league.

The reason this claim falls on deaf ears is that the Bob Kraft's and Daniel Snyder's of the world have not been the team's determining the market.

The Blank's and Irsay's of the world have been doing it. The Manning and Vick contracts went way above the market at the time. Has any one who has done so little ever been paid as much as Vick? And then after they do that, they turn around and say they need handouts from the high market owners in order to compete.

They say things like this from today's projo:

Bill Polian, president of the Indianapolis Colts (a lower-revenue team) told USA Today in the summer of 2004, "We can't keep as many people as some teams can. The issue is cash. If you have cash that your stadium is generating every year, you can commit that to bonuses to retain or get players in the free agent market."

The Colts can't pay bonus $? Say what? This was 2 months after giving Manning a 34 million dollar bonus. Since then they have given 36 million more to Harrison and Wayne. But they are saying that without total revenue sharing they can't pay bonus $? Polian and Irsay are lying - plain and simple.

This isn't about competitive balance of the league with the owners. If it was they would have had it done by now.

It is a business dispute about some small market owners wanting handouts so they can profit on the hard work of the other owners. That is why they can't get it done. Teams that have marketing staffs and go out and work their market for every $ are never going to want to give that $ to the Ralph Wilson's and Mike Brown's of the world who want to sit back, name their stadiums to glorify the family name, and then demand they be handed the $ Gillette or Lincoln Financial are paying other teams.

 

[ClosingTime]

Nobody can convince me that Greenbay or Buffalo or Cleveland fans aren't ravenous enough. You just have to give them a tiny shred of hope and they are all over the product.

That is not the point. Their cities just don't have the wealth to compete. If Boston, New York, Dallas or Washington wants to charge $300 a ticket, someone in those areas will pay. Not so in a lot of the rest of the country. And it's not just ticket prices. Advertisers pay more money to reach people that have money, so the wealthy areas will attract more of that money too. It's a snowball effect that even in the first few years without equal revenue sharing may not make a huge impact but I'd be willing to bet that 20 years into it, the leaguee would literally be 2 distinct leagues of the haves and have nots.

 

[Warhorse]

I disagree...

I know some of you guys loathe the colts, but I don't believe they should be lumped into the same category as the rest of the smaller market teams with their hands out. When Robert Irsay owned the team, he turned them into a shambles. When he died and his son Jim Irsay took over, a switch was turned on. Jim hired Polian to turn the team around and build a consistent winner like he did when he was in Buffalo and Carolina when they expanded. After Mora's lame attempts at coaching, he went out and hired the best coach on the market. He worked with the city of Indianapolis and the state government to add to Indy's appeal with a new stadium and convention space for the likes of the NCAA basketball tournament and the combine along with whatever else they can cram into it. All the while, he could have picked up his team and took of to the largest television market of L.A. He just recently sold the naming rights to Lucas OIl after RCA's agreement ran out. Being in one of the smaller markets hasn't kept Irsay from obtaining close to the same goals as Kraft. Although Kraft did pay for his own stadium which I think is the way it should be, but the colts stadium will be more than just a place where football is played.

Irsay and Polian do everything they can to make Indy a winning team. He had a chance to be like the late Robert Irsay and move the team but he stayed with Indy because he knew that this is where he is supposed to be, and by doing so he keeps pulling more and more fans to Indianapolis. The one thing that he can do now is win the Superbowl. He has turned the team into a consistent winner and pulls in money for the team wherever he can. He just doesn't bring in anywhere near what the bigger market teams do due to his location. Maybe with the new stadium he'll increase to midway.

I just don't think it's quite fair that he is thrown in with the Bill Bidwell, the Yorks, Al Davis and Ralph Wilson when he has built a winning franchise in one of the smallest markets in the NFL.

 

[PATSNUTme]

The premise of this thread's title shows lack of knowlege of business matters.

Taking just "total revenues" without taking in consideration debt service is absurd. If I were Bob Kraft, my feet would be in cement on that one. All the other owners, who don't have debt service on their publicly financed stadiums, should be ashamed of themselves for even suggesting that "gross revenues" be shared.

The union should also not insist that "total revenues" be used unless they include a take out for debt service.

If I run a business and have "total revenues" of 1mil and debt service of $300,000 before other expenses,does that mean 1 mil to pay those other expenses?

No, that means I have $700K to spend on other expenses and if I'm lucky I may make a 5% after tax profit.

 

[PatsFan37]

Have we forgotten who pays the salaries?

Salary cap keeps the teams competitive, which is appropriate. I don't want the Steelers coming to Foxboro thinking the Pats have an unfair financial advantage. We will beat them fair and square, here or there.

OTOH, I don't want my ticket prices to subsidize the tickets of fans in another state because their marketing department is lazy. Nor do I want my stadium to be quieter because we have expensive seats for wealthy fans that don't yell as loud, and then have that money lower the Bengals ticket prices and not mine. Nor do I want to pay the Bengals to name their stadium after a dead football coach who may not have been as good as the coach of my local team, who is very much alive.

It's my money. First I want it spent on a competitive league. Once that problem is solved, I'd like any excess to stay here in New England for the betterment of our stadium and our taxpayers. After all, we earned it.

And for you midwestern fans who consider yourselves the heartbeat of America, I believe that's the American way.

 

[flutie2phelan]

Thoughtful debut, smg.

Welcome to the board !

 

[PatsSteve1]

bingo. Kraft made a huge risk by paying, with his OWN money for a stadium. Just because other owners can't generate money and suck as business men is not Krafts fault.

* This is kind of a simplfied look at it. Kraft knew going in he was going to get 10's of millions of dollars every year in guaranteed income from revenue sharing. He also knew even when he took over, the team was making money, just not much. NFL teams rarely go under, if at all. I wonder(actually I'm sure) if the Patriots were still one of th elow revenue teams, if folks here wouldn't be singing a different song.

 

[primetime]

What a moronic comments. Did you buy the team ? Did you put your money up to build the stadium ? Don't stand behind the Krafts. Don't post here. Go post on the Bills forum or Jacksonville or St, Louis. Just leave. Don't let the door hit in the ***** on the way. Moron.

I come here to talk about football. You know, passes, runs, and tackles. Not economics. I'm hardly an expert in the field of economics, so I'll admit I am ignorant of the financial situation, which is why I made this post. I'm glad there are some here who would rather offer explanations based on sound economic evidence as to why the Krafts are not wrong in this instance versus people who would rather flame away because I would not stand behind the Krafts, and I'm glad there are some who can understand why I would make the point I made.

I was also looking at it the wrong way, as profit sharing rather than revenue sharing. That was a pretty big mistake to make, I think.

Thanks to everyone who actually made a decent reply. However, how acerbic some of these responses have been surprised me. I'll take a leave from these forums until the draft, unless there's some huge splash in free agency that's made.

 

[AzPatsFan]

Tom currans (Forbes) list

Is it eye opening, or is it eye opening that the teams in the largest market of all rank 20th (Giants) and 23rd (Jets) respectively in revenues. ( I wonder where they rank in Profits?) And neither the Giants nor Jets paid for their stadium. They split the same stadium so presumeably their rents are half what they would otherwise be.

It was built by the State of New Jersey and after only 20 years or so, both teams are agitating for newer even more fantastic digs, since 85,000 seats with lots of luxry boxes, more important, and with lots of the fat cats from all the corporations HQed in New York to buy them, to pay top dollar for them, is just not enough.

Cry me a river of crocodile tears....

 

[PatsSteve1]

Is it eye opening, or is it eye opening that the teams in the largest market of all rank 20th (Giants) and 23rd (Jets) respectively in revenues. ( I wonder where they rank in Profits?) And neither the Giants nor Jets paid for their stadium. They split the same stadium so presumeably their rents are half what they would otherwise be.

* It also means the Jets and Giants don't get all the revenue from that stadium even when they play a game there. I don't know what they pay in rent but if I owned that staium and they both played there, They'd pay whatever a full amount is.

 

[smg93]

Thoughtful debut, smg.

Thanks. I just needed to vent. Haha.

 

[JDSal45]

The Krafts have taken on debt in building their own stadium without the sweetheart deal that they would have had in Hartford and many other NFL teams have.

I believe they feel that they would be at a disadvantage in sharing more revenues.

They know their business and it appears that they are protecting their interests.

I believe in Kraft before Upshaw any day.

The Krafts didn't build their own stadium, completely. Half of it was financed thru an interest free, let me repeat INTEREST FREE, loan from the NFL. That is paid back from the visiting gate share. You can't get a financing deal like that anywhere else practically.

The other 50% was financed by them. Another $75 million in infrastructure outside the stadium was paid for by Massachusetts.

So they get an asset, at the end of the day, that is worth an untold amount of money for basically 50% of the interest anyone else would have to pay.

J D Sal

 

[Pats726]

The Krafts didn't build their own stadium, completely. Half of it was financed thru an interest free, let me repeat INTEREST FREE, loan from the NFL. That is paid back from the visiting gate share. You can't get a financing deal like that anywhere else practically.

The other 50% was financed by them. Another $75 million in infrastructure outside the stadium was paid for by Massachusetts.

So they get an asset, at the end of the day, that is worth an untold amount of money for basically 50% of the interest anyone else would have to pay.

J D Sal

And if it is THAt easy to build a stadiium, why haven't teams done that?? Much easier bilking taxpayers into it??