This is an interesting article by Mike Freeman from the NFL Owners Meetings. Basically, Roger Goodell is more popular than ever with NFL owners because he is making them a ton of money. Looks like Goodell isn't going anywhere for a long time:
1. When Everyone's Rich, Everyone's Happy
Toward the end of the Deflategate kerfuffle, a few owners told me they wondered if NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell was in trouble. They wondered whether Deflategate would be his Waterloo. They wondered if this was the beginning of the end of Goodell's tenure.
Recently, though, I received a different prognosis from two of those owners, who are now spending the week at the NFL annual meeting in Phoenix.
Despite some of the mistakes Goodell has made, including Deflategate and the Ray Rice fiasco, his footing has stabilized among ownership, even ones who didn't think he was doing a good job.
Why? It's simple. Goodell is the head of the league at a time when it is making unprecedented levels of money, and owners have put aside their issues with him because their pockets are getting fatter.
In fact, Goodell's popularity among owners has increased.
Owners see him as someone who basically will do what they say, I'm told. This is essentially the case with all commissioners—they work for the owners, after all. But the word in the NFL is Goodell takes this to a new level.
He did take on one of the most powerful owners in all of sports, Patriots owner Robert Kraft, but all of that has been lost in a haze of money, as one owner put it to me.
Repeatedly, owners expressed their belief that the NFL has maneuvered its way past three of the biggest land mines it has ever faced: Deflategate, CTE and the Rice fiasco.
Now, owners tell me, the NFL is making more money than it ever has before, and the predictions that the league could possibly suffer a huge blow in popularity haven't materialized. (I was one of those who expressed such a viewpoint.) It seems the NFL is back to business as usual.
Owners are moving their teams at will—and making tons of cash doing it—while leaving fanbases in ruins. The latter part doesn't matter to owners; the former does. Twitter streamed some Thursday Night Football games last year, and now it, Facebook, Amazon and YouTube might battle to do the same in 2017, according to Recode's Kurt Wagner.
Look at how lucrative the Raiders' move to Las Vegas will be for the league. The state of Nevada is expected to contribute $750 million in public funding to the Raiders' new stadium, according to ESPN's Kevin Seifert. That's enough of a fleecing. An additional $200 million in public funding is expected to cover maintenance fees.
That's...incredible.
Whether the taxes would be raised from hotels and casinos is irrelevant. The NFL, with revenues of $14 billion (per Daniel Kaplan of SportsBusiness Journal), getting that kind of money is remarkable.
Then, there is this remarkable piece of information, and it comes from Dr. Windy Dees, who is an associate professor at the University of Miami, and specializes in sports business. She tweeted that in the three franchise moves of the Chargers, Rams and Raiders alone, the NFL gained $1.65 billion in relocation fees. Those three teams keep a large swath of that money, and the other 29, Dees says, get $53 million each.
None of the relocation money goes to the players.
Wow. Just wow.
This is the Goodell Economy. This is what owners care about the most, and it's why he's still around despite mishandling some of the biggest scandals in NFL history.
One owner explained it this way: It's like being the president of the United States when the economy is going well. The president's policies may or may not have contributed to a prosperous country, but he gets credit for it anyway.
Many players and fans despite Goodell. Outside of former Colts owner Bob Irsay, who moved the team from Baltimore in the middle of the night, there may not be a more universally criticized figure in league history than Goodell.
But so long as the money keeps rolling in, none of that seems to matter.
1. When Everyone's Rich, Everyone's Happy
Toward the end of the Deflategate kerfuffle, a few owners told me they wondered if NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell was in trouble. They wondered whether Deflategate would be his Waterloo. They wondered if this was the beginning of the end of Goodell's tenure.
Recently, though, I received a different prognosis from two of those owners, who are now spending the week at the NFL annual meeting in Phoenix.
Despite some of the mistakes Goodell has made, including Deflategate and the Ray Rice fiasco, his footing has stabilized among ownership, even ones who didn't think he was doing a good job.
Why? It's simple. Goodell is the head of the league at a time when it is making unprecedented levels of money, and owners have put aside their issues with him because their pockets are getting fatter.
In fact, Goodell's popularity among owners has increased.
Owners see him as someone who basically will do what they say, I'm told. This is essentially the case with all commissioners—they work for the owners, after all. But the word in the NFL is Goodell takes this to a new level.
He did take on one of the most powerful owners in all of sports, Patriots owner Robert Kraft, but all of that has been lost in a haze of money, as one owner put it to me.
Repeatedly, owners expressed their belief that the NFL has maneuvered its way past three of the biggest land mines it has ever faced: Deflategate, CTE and the Rice fiasco.
Now, owners tell me, the NFL is making more money than it ever has before, and the predictions that the league could possibly suffer a huge blow in popularity haven't materialized. (I was one of those who expressed such a viewpoint.) It seems the NFL is back to business as usual.
Owners are moving their teams at will—and making tons of cash doing it—while leaving fanbases in ruins. The latter part doesn't matter to owners; the former does. Twitter streamed some Thursday Night Football games last year, and now it, Facebook, Amazon and YouTube might battle to do the same in 2017, according to Recode's Kurt Wagner.
Look at how lucrative the Raiders' move to Las Vegas will be for the league. The state of Nevada is expected to contribute $750 million in public funding to the Raiders' new stadium, according to ESPN's Kevin Seifert. That's enough of a fleecing. An additional $200 million in public funding is expected to cover maintenance fees.
That's...incredible.
Whether the taxes would be raised from hotels and casinos is irrelevant. The NFL, with revenues of $14 billion (per Daniel Kaplan of SportsBusiness Journal), getting that kind of money is remarkable.
Then, there is this remarkable piece of information, and it comes from Dr. Windy Dees, who is an associate professor at the University of Miami, and specializes in sports business. She tweeted that in the three franchise moves of the Chargers, Rams and Raiders alone, the NFL gained $1.65 billion in relocation fees. Those three teams keep a large swath of that money, and the other 29, Dees says, get $53 million each.
None of the relocation money goes to the players.
Wow. Just wow.
This is the Goodell Economy. This is what owners care about the most, and it's why he's still around despite mishandling some of the biggest scandals in NFL history.
One owner explained it this way: It's like being the president of the United States when the economy is going well. The president's policies may or may not have contributed to a prosperous country, but he gets credit for it anyway.
Many players and fans despite Goodell. Outside of former Colts owner Bob Irsay, who moved the team from Baltimore in the middle of the night, there may not be a more universally criticized figure in league history than Goodell.
But so long as the money keeps rolling in, none of that seems to matter.
