Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Remote draft sign of fanless future for the NFL
It was tough getting inside the head of NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell when he preempted the draft to warn the record TV audience about the tough times ahead.
After all, the NFL was back. It was the NBA, the NHL and MLB who were getting slammed by the coronavirus. They were the businesses losing games and revenue.
The draft went on as scheduled, just as free agency shifted into gear without delay. Deadly and debilitating as the coronavirus had been, it was unable to stop those iconic, if not overrated symbols of the ultimate team sport which prided itself on playing through pain.
With the league’s regular season months away, the fears of football fans were dispelled shortly after Goodell announced in prime time on a Thursday night that Cincinnati was on the clock. True to their reputation, the Bengals used almost all of their allotted time before selecting consensus first overall pick Joe Burrow, the quarterback out of LSU who grew up in Ohio.
We should have known better. Goodell was standing in his basement, not on a stage at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas where the lottery was supposed to be. He had time to run upstairs and change from a blue blazer into a V-neck sweater between picks, for crying out loud.
That’s because it was a virtual draft where bandwidth and cyber-security were more important than the trade value chart.
Odd as the draft was, at the end of the weekend it was like all the others. There were shocking picks, anticipated picks, stupid picks, trades, and a lot of discussion about why this guy played as fast as his 40yard dash time, what a risk this other guy was because he didn’t play in a major conference and how Bill Belichick was ahead of the curve again by staying out of camera range and seating his pet husky in front of his laptop.
Three weeks after Burrow came off the
board, the NFL has slashed salaries of league personnel, Goodell himself stepping entirely away from a salary worth up to $40 million with incentives.
Contributions to the company pension plan were permanently reduced from 15 percent to 10 percent. There also were furloughs. It will be at least a couple of months (best-case scenario) before the latter group is back according to NFL officials. Teams are scrambling to reduce costs. On Tuesday it was no longer a secret that the NFL could wind up playing games in empty or relatively empty stadiums or arenas, just as the NBA and MLB are considering. And what a revenue hit that could be.
To prepare for the worst, NFL teams recently agreed to vote on a measure later this month that would increase debt limits for each team from $150 million to $350 million, per reports. That’s basically not a good sign unless you’re building a new stadium.
Reuters reported that ESPN has figures indicating the NFL could lose about $130 million per game from reductions in ticket and concession revenues without fans, to
say nothing of the home field advantage.
If you thought the Sixers were the Philly sports club that benefited most from their fans, you’ve forgotten how dominant the Eagles’ defense has been when Lincoln Financial Field is rocking. No fans in the stands? “For sure it will be different, man, if we have to play the game with no fans,” Pro Bowl defensive tackle Fletcher Cox said on a teleconference call Tuesday. “At the same time we have to understand again that health is a priority. We have to look at our health. If we have to play a game with no fans, it will be something to get used to. It will be more like a, you know, I don’t know how to explain it. “But it will be weird, for sure.” Barring a dramatic financial reversal there’s a chance the NFL’s hard salary cap could go down in 2021, not up, for just the second time since its inception in 1994.
Moreover, with the salary cap increasing from 47 to 48 percent of defined gross revenues this year, and possibly 48.5 percent with a media kicker in subsequent years, teams are economizing by not picking up
the option years of first-round draft picks for 2021 at an historic level.
Just 18 of the 32 first-round picks in the 2017 draft had their options picked up, included just five of the top 10 picks. Mitchell Trubisky, Solomon Thomas, Leonard Fournette, Corey Davis or Johnny Ross, anyone? FYI: The Eagles picked up the fifth year option of Derrick Barnett.
Did we mention the NFL is negotiating a new TV contract? The current pact expires after the 2021 season.
The tough decisions have only begun for this business full of billionaires challenged more than ever to maintain standing as the premier sport in this country.
Barring a minor miracle, virtual free agency, the draft and the schedule release are the last vestiges of normalcy this league will have with revenues jeopardized by a deadly virus that won’t give up. Virtual drafts are one thing. Virtual football is a hard sell.
Contact Bob Grotz at bgrotz@21stcenturymedia.com; follow him on Twitter @BobGrotz.