THE NFL’S FAT-CATS PREPARE TO DO ANOTHER BIT OF MUSICAL CHAIRS
(…a billion here…a billion there…never mind the sport…it’s all about market share…)

The billionaires that make up the NFL’s franchise-owners club are set to meet soon in Chicago. Apparently it’s time for the NFL’s fat-cats to do another bit of musical chairs again. Not being of that club, we’ve always found it difficult to understand why it should be necessary to periodically shuffle things around like that. What it boils down to, we suppose, is that it has nothing to do with football. Rather, it’s simply a matter of…a billion here…a billion there…never mind the sport…it’s all about market share! And right now the urban area of great interest for that purpose…is poor old Los Angeles…which has been without a football team ever since its Rams were hauled away to St. Louis. If we recall correctly, a key reason for that had something to do with the lack of a proper stadium facility… and…not able to negotiate a deal with the civic authorities for some kind of public funding to build one for them.

That seems to be the common reason for this kind of periodic shuffling around of their teams. The Forty Niners heading out of San Francisco for San Jose…the Raiders…ready to bolt out of Oakland, and so on. Which raises an interesting question here: If someone can afford to acquire an NFL franchise…why do they need public tax-money for a stadium? Since when has it been ordained that public money is needed for a private venture…just because it’s a sports team (football, basketball, hockey, baseball, etc.)?

Well, we know of only one franchise owner who did it on his own. Tired of haggling with obstructionist civic authorities he finally said…screw it…but rather than moving away somewhere else for a better deal…he decided to somehow fund the whole thing himself… which he did. At the time everyone thought he was crazy. It was unheard of. Even the NFL hierarchs grumbled about it. As it turned out he was crazy…like a fox! He quietly bought up the necessary local acreage, arranged to finance and build his own stadium on it…and then…enjoyed not having to share any of the profits it later generated for him with the local politicos which had given him such a hard time.

Who was that football team owner? It was none other than Joe Robie…owner of the Miami Dolphins. At the time his privately funded stadium was state of the art in design and amenities…and acclaimed as one of the finest in the country. Better still, during the off season…his venture made other profits from it by hosting – Monster Truck – rallies, and, as a –Family Reunion- venue…with none of those profits having to be shared with local authorities either.

Today, given the tsunami flows of returns these franchise owners gain from broadcast and other licensing deals why is it that none of them have ever followed Joe Robie’s example? We can only speculate about that.

Actually, it may just be a lack of real vision. If any of them had any real smarts, they would quietly set up separate “stadium investment” entities, allowing a form of “cloud” funding participation by local area fans, and then negotiate a long term lease for its use by their sports franchise, with the returns from that shared out much like an MLP, that is, with up to 80% given over to their local fan investors.

As we see it, such an approach to fund a stadium for a sports franchise is the epitome of what a late former partner of ours once labeled as …the-string-of-pearls… approach for such ventures. That is, while being on a common “string” each participant is a separate “pearl” receiving its own shore of the returns, letting everyone involved to get a piece of the pie. We think that would be a much more viable and stable basis for having a sports franchise anywhere because the local fan base would have a vested interest in it.

CENTURION