Bermuda Shorts - James Patterson [45]
Let’s pick on the NFL some more. As of this writing each and every team—thirty-two and counting—gets more than a hundred million dollars per year from network television for the right to bring you the games. Not surprisingly, all of that money is claimed by the players’ union under the logic that people tune in to watch players play the game. I would suggest that is only partially true. Most of the Die-Hard Fans I know tune in to see their team. The players come and go, but loyalty to the team trumps loyalty to a player in all but the most special circumstances.
Also, since revenue from the ticket-buying public is now far down the list of NFL revenues, fan satisfaction is a low priority when it comes to rules changes and game-altering decision making. And none of that network cash is passed on to fans in the form of lower prices.
Another startling fact is that the networks lose lots of money on the NFL. The networks rationalize the expense by claiming that they use the high ratings for the games to promote their weekly entertainment line-ups. Watch and you will notice that the premier advertising slots during NFL contests are reserved for in-house network adverts for the shows they are currently promoting. What effect this has on actual programming during non-sports-related broadcasts is hard to tell. One of these days some sharp CPA is going to stand up at a finance meeting and suggest that the NFL has become so dependent on television that the networks could actually pay the league whatever they please: where else can the league go? On that day the NFL will rediscover the fan in the stands, currently just a television extra who is paying good money for the privilege.
The NHL is different. It’s the last professional league that still depends on the fan at the gate for the bulk of its revenue. Therefore, the spectacle at the arena is still aimed primarily at the fan in the stands rather than the fan on the couch. NHL owners, traditionally, won’t even sacrifice seats for better TV camera vantage points. This makes the big shift the NHL has made—away from fighting and toward a more sophisticated on-ice product—all the more courageous. Also, it means that the league has had to adapt to the changing demographic taking place in the stands: more upscale as ticket prices soar, more educated, and more sensitive to the violence that was considered a necessary part of the game in earlier eras.
We hear all the time that greed has taken over the big leagues these days, and it’s hard to argue against that view. And maybe the suits are right. Maybe the Die-Hard Fan like myself is antiquated, obsolete, a thing of the past. Maybe the Unholy Trinity of Players’ Unions, Big Media, and Ownership has created a marketing combine so sophisticated that it can keep the window shoppers turning over in such numbers and with such constancy that those things we used to value about sports—the traditions, the values, and the memories from one generation to the next—no longer matter to the health of the business. With corporate naming rights, it’s figured out how to get advertisements into the body and content of “news” stories, both print and broadcast media, with nary a peep of protest from the lap dogs in the sporting press.
Perhaps, by abandoning the Die-Hard Fan, the suits are telling us that they don’t even care about their own survival so long as there’s a big payoff now, and for as long as they can make it last. When the house of cards falls, they’ll take their profits and leave our games in a state of ruin.
But make no mistake, it’s the Die-Hard Fans who keep the games alive. They’re the ones who buy the tickets, who watch and listen to the media broadcasts of the games, who follow the boxes in the papers, who purchase gear, and, most importantly, who get their friends, the true casual fans, to start going to the games.
Walter Johnson: