Why Los Angeles May Not Get an NFL Team
By Evan Weiner
December 26, 2010
http://www.examiner.com/business-of-sports-in-national/why-los-angeles-may-not-get-an-nfl-team
(New York, NY) -- There seems to be a lot of momentum in the “Bring the NFL Back to Los Angeles” campaign, but is the push for an NFL team in downtown LA or the City of Industry just an illusion? It is a question worth pondering even if soon-to-be former New York Governor David Paterson thinks the Buffalo Bills franchise could end up in the Southland in 2014.
Under Governor Paterson’s scenario, Buffalo Bills owner Ralph Wilson’s estate tax will be so high that his heirs will have to sell the team to the highest bidder and that someone will scoop up the franchise and move the team elsewhere. Governor Paterson doesn’t think Toronto will support an NFL team and that Los Angeles is the logical alternative once the Bills lease in Orchard Park expires in 2013.
But will there ever be an NFL stadium built in downtown LA? That is a huge question mark. AEG (Anschutz Entertainment Group) is behind the construction of a stadium near LA Live, a congested area that might not be able to handle the traffic flow of 70,000 people per game. But the traffic congestion may be just window dressing for the real problem.
There are some holes in the LA story that need to be addressed. AEG President and CEO Tim Leiweke is talking about building a stadium near the LA Live property for the past couple of months. His vision is building a 65,000-seat facility and getting an NFL owner (presumably Minnesota’s Zygi Wilf, Jacksonville’s Wayne Weaver, maybe San Diego’s Spanos family) to commit to moving his franchise to Los Angeles by perhaps the NFL annual spring owners meeting in March.
Wilf is going before the Minnesota legislature after the first of the year and asking for a new stadium. Red McCombs sold the team to Wilf in 2005 after failing to get the Minnesota legislature and Governor Jesse Ventura on board in his attempt to get a new stadium. Minnesota has built a new baseball stadium and college football stadium since McCombs sold the team.
Here are the problems Leiweke will encounter. He might be too full of himself. His boss, Phil Anshutz is not on board with the stadium plan. The NFL is going to do absolutely nothing in helping Leiweke in terms of paying for a stadium until the league’s owners and players agree to a new collective bargaining agreement. There is a reason that the San Francisco 49ers owners, the York family, have not gone ahead with the construction of a facility in Santa Clara even though voters gave the project the go ahead last spring. The NFL’s stance though might have to change before Minnesota elected officials in the statehouse in St. Paul to help Wilf. The Vikings-Metrodome lease ends after the 2011 season.
NFL owners want the players to help finance the cost of a new facility and plan to get in writing as part of a new Collective Bargaining Agreement.
Leiweke’s recent track record is not good when it comes to arena projects or getting a major league team as a client in an AEG building. Harrah’s and AEG agreed to build an arena in Las Vegas in 2007, that never happened and AEG has been unable to convince an NHL or NBA owner to relocate his franchise to an AEG-run, new facility in Kansas City.
Leiweke thinks the stadium will cost about a billion dollars and AEG will finance the place. The NFL’s two newest venues in Arlington, Texas and East Rutherford, New Jersey cost more than that and neither Cowboys Stadium nor the New Meadowlands Stadium have a corporate sponsor. That means the actual financing for the facility has to be questioned.
There is the timetable that Leiweke has laid out. He wants to get a deal done, get tax breaks, maybe a payment in lieu of taxes or a tax incremental funding or some other sleight-of-hand economic gimmickry (which politicians love to approve even though there are financial consequences down the road—just look at Hamilton County, Ohio and the fiscal plight of the Cincinnati Bengals facility and how Cincinnati-area politicians totally underestimated revenues and failed to understand basic stadium financing) from Los Angeles elected officials. The problem this time around is simple.
Los Angeles has nothing to give and California is broke (the University of California because of the state’s perilous financial conditions has dropped five sports teams including men’s baseball at Berkeley) although you would never know it looking at Oakland’s reaction to Lew Wolff’s threat of moving his Major League Baseball Oakland A’s to San Jose. Oakland wants to keep the team in town even though Wolff wants greener pastures like San Jose.
California also has some very tough environmental provisions that need to be met by stadium planners.
Leiweke is selling the stadium as part of a grand plan that includes a convention center with the thought of making downtown Los Angeles a convention destination. That would put Leiweke and AEG in competition with Las Vegas and Orlando and other cities for an industry that is drying up---conventions. The competition for conventions also includes cruise ships. One line built two super- sized vessels with the thought of going after conventions and having conventions taking place on a cruise ship.
That has not worked out as planned.
Leiweke also has a competitor to the east. Ed Roski wants to build a football facility for some NFL owner at a plot of land in the City of Industry. Roski has floated the idea for about two years and nothing much has happened. Roski’s proposal doesn’t make sense for an NFL owner looking for greener pastures.
Roski’s stadium was supposed to cost $800 billion when the City of Industry City Council approved the plan in February 2009. The $800 million figure seems out of line and too conservative when compared with Jerry Jones’s Arlington, Texas venue for his Dallas Cowboys and the East Rutherford, New Jersey stadium that is being funded by the owners of the New York Giants and New York Giants. Both stadiums price tags are estimated at well over a billion dollars.
The National Football League used to have something called the G-3 program which loaned up to $150 million to owners who built stadiums. Money went to Denver’s Pat Bowlen, ($50 million) in 1999, New England’s Bob Kraft ($150 million) in 1999, Philadelphia’s Jeffrey Lurie ($150 million) in 1999, Detroit’s William Clay Ford ($100 million) in 2000, Seattle’s Paul Allen ($50 million) in 2000, Chicago’s McCaskey Family ($100 million) in 2000, the Green Bay Packers Board of Directors ($100 million) in 2001, Arizona’s Bill Bidwill ($50 million) in 2001, Dallas’ Jones ($76.5 million) in 2005 and Indianapolis’s Jim Irsay ($34 million) in 2005 to fund new facilities or to renovate old venues.
Even though the G-3 program was running out of money by 2006, the Giants Mara-Tisch families and the Jets Woody Johnson did get $300 million for their new Meadowlands facility from NFL owners in 2006 and the Kansas City Chiefs Hunt family ended up with $42.5 million for renovations at Arrowhead Stadium.
The loans helped fill a shortfall between public financing of projected final costs of stadiums in Denver, Philadelphia, Detroit, Seattle, Chicago, Green Bay, Glendale, Arizona, Arlington, Texas and Indianapolis. All the facilities including Foxboro, Massachusetts and East Rutherford, New Jersey received various tax breaks whether they were privately or publicly funded.
Roski’s Majesty Realty plans to pursue Buffalo’s Ralph Wilson or Jacksonville’s Wayne Weaver initially. Wilson’s lease in Orchard Park ends following the 2013 season. Wilson is 92 years old and he has leased a number of home games to Toronto through the 2012 season. Toronto, Ontario is 90 miles from Buffalo and there is enough money in Toronto to support an NFL team should Wilson or his heirs decide that small market Buffalo is not for them.
Jacksonville does not have the wherewithal to support an NFL team in the 21st century as there are not enough well heeled fans or corporate dollars around to sell out the stadium. Demographers were wrong in estimating the city’s growth and potential when the NFL awarded Jacksonville a franchise in 1993. The Jaguars owner Wayne Weaver has won lease concessions from the city but has been unable to sell naming rights at the Jacksonville stadium and the team has not be able to sell out the stadium which means home games are not seen in the Jacksonville market. This despite cutting down the capacity of the stadium by covering seats.
Majesty Realty has decided that Buffalo and Jacksonville are not NFL markets by whatever arbitrary means they have created. The company will not go after San Diego’s Alex Spanos, Minnesota’s Zygi Wilf or San Francisco’s York family because those owners are attempting to find financing in those markets although the Yorks have their eyes set on Santa Clara which is 40 miles south of San Francisco with Oakland as a fallback position.
The NFL would like to see the York family and Oakland’s Al Davis to find common ground and work on a new stadium together to solve a potential Bay Area problem. Davis lease in Oakland ends in 2013.
St. Louis is another franchise that might be in the City of Industry mix. The Rams franchise lease ends in 2014.
Roski and his company want to develop a football village in the City of Industry complete with a stadium and other businesses. Roski doesn’t want to outright own an NFL team but would like a piece of the action and is trading the right to help fund the Roski stadium for the right to making lots of potential revenues generated in the LA market and in his stadium village and to be an owner in LA.
In other words, Roski wants an NFL owner to become his partner in a real estate venture. In the real world of the NFL, cash on the barrelhead is the preferred way of doing business. Roski ought to know this by now; he witnessed it first hand when the NFL gave LA an expansion team. All LA and Roski needed to do was to put up a stadium.
That never happened and Robert McNair and Houston got the team. Houston and Harris County approved a publicly financed stadium.
With no G-3 revenues available, with California in dire financial shape, with Jerry Jones and the Mara/Tisch/Johnson East Rutherford, NJ group still looking for a naming rights partner for their stadiums, with ticket prices far, far too high and in the City of Industry’s scheme, there would have to be a heavy Personnel Seat Licensing fee and then high prices for those buying the licenses, Roski’s deal doesn’t look like much of a bargain for Wilson or Weaver or both.
Roski might not have any lawsuits to worry about that would slow down the project and lame duck California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has waived environmental laws because the stadium and the other part of the construction project would in theory create jobs with Majestic estimating that the project will put 6,700 people into jobs that would create $21 million in new tax revenue and have a $762 million impact on the area.
Based on other deals that developers have cut with municipalities, it is unlikely that those figures have any accuracy. Because of various tools such as payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT), tax increment financing (TIF) and others, the City of Industry won’t be getting full property taxes assessment on the land.
If Roski and the City of Industry think that a Los Angeles market stadium will get them a Super Bowl, they are probably correct, the NFL will put the stadium in the rotation but there needs to be a history lesson here. Back in 1994-5, the NFL was trying to help Al Davis land a new stadium for his Los Angeles Raiders near the Hollywood Park racetrack in Inglewood.
The NFL, trying to sweeten the deal, offered five Super Bowls over a ten-year period to get the stadium built. The deal was scaled back to three over 10 years then one, then the NFL decided LA should be a two team marketing and another team (after Georgia Frontiere moved her Anaheim-based Los Angeles Rams to St. Louis) and that Davis team would share the stadium with another franchise and share all of the revenues generated inside the building.
Davis went back to Oakland.
The Super Bowl does not guarantee that the corporate community will take a look at the area hosting the game and move some of their operations to that area. The corporate community knows Los Angeles. If that type of thinking---that corporate leaders will open up facilities in an area because it was good enough for the Super Bowl was true --- then Jacksonville should be a burgeoning area.
Jacksonville hosted the Super Bowl on February 6, 2005.
Where is the great deal that Roski and Majestic have offered? Unless they offer hundreds of millions of dollars and it might be closer to a billion dollars to buy out an owner, there is no great deal. An owner will not sell off a piece of his franchise in exchange for development rights in a bad economy in a financially downtrodden state with a high rate of foreclosures. It does not make sense.
If Roski has to spend a billion for a team, then another billion for the stadium, what does that do to a franchise’s finances? On top of that the NFL might impose a relocation fee and furthermore, there is no collective bargaining agreement in place after March 3, 2011, so owners have no clue about future budgets.
Because the stadium is privately financed more than eight percent of the stadium-generated revenues will go off to pay down the debt unlike those that get public monies.
Getting a franchise back in Los Angeles is a dream shared by NFL owners, Leiweke, Roski and the LA business community. But the reality is that there is not enough money around right now to get a facility built and there is an array of other factors including getting the approval of the Los Angeles Coliseum Commission, a group that doesn’t want competition in the Southland. All of these factors can be a momentum killer for Leiweke, AEG and Roski.
Evan Weiner, the winner of the United States Sports Academy's 2010 Ronald Reagan Media Award, is an author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business." His book, "The Business and Politics of Sports, Second Edition is available at www.bickley.com, xplana.com or amazonkindle. He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Showing posts with label NFL Phil Anschutz. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NFL Phil Anschutz. Show all posts
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Should Chris Christie be considered one of the most powerful people in sports?
TUESDAY, 12 OCTOBER 2010 16:22
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/should-chris-christie-be-considered-one-of-the-most-powerful-people-in-sports
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
It is silly season again as a S. I. M. magazine "the only global sport business magazine targeting a dual readership that focuses exclusively on influence and affluence in today's ever-changing world" is polling readership and asking readers to name the most influential people in the world of sports. For the record, this United Kingdom-based publication has Joseph Blatter, the President of FIFA (Soccer) out in front in the voting followed by the President of the International Olympic Committee, Dr. Jacques Rogge and Herbert Hainer, the Chairman and CEO of adidas in the top three slots. The first American on the list and coming in at number four is Heidi Ueberroth, which is a head turner. Ueberroth's father Peter, of course, ran the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Committee and was the Commissioner of Major League Baseball but his daughter simply doesn't belong as high on this list as President of NBA International. Her boss David Stern as the Commissioner of the National Basketball Association has more power.
Stern is ninth on the list well ahead of NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman who is at 50. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, who cannot get his league market attention and traction outside the North American continent unlike Stern, Bettman and Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig, who is 11th. Selig is 32nd, one spot ahead of CBS Sports President Sean McManus, which makes no sense. McManus just gave the NCAA billions of dollars in a partnership with Turner Sports for the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. McManus' Turner Sports Partner David Levy is ranked 54th.
For some reason, S. I. M. magazine has San Francisco 49ers owner Denise DeBartolo York in the Top 100. York doesn't run the football team, her 29-year-old son Jed with a rather thin business resume does.
Stern, the former Teaneck resident, understands where the real power in sports is located. Stern's three legged stool formula for success always starts with government. In the United States and in a great many countries, elected officials either directly give money to sports (as in Malaysia) or set up laws that funnel money into sports whether it is through tax breaks, tax incentives, the building of facilities at taxpayers' expense and in America, the federal government changed the cable TV laws which allowed owners like the Yankees George Steinbrenner, the Mets Fred Wilpon and the Dolan-family owned New York Knicks, New York Rangers and New York Liberty to make enormous sums of money from cable TV. The feds also give tax breaks to corporations buying high item sports event seats for "business purposes."
In New Jersey, Chris Christie as Governor is more important to the sports world than the state's highest paid employees, the Rutgers football coach and the Rutgers men's and women's basketball coach. Christie has to decide the fate of the Meadowlands at some point soon along with the horse racing industry in the state. Horse racing is a sport even though none of the top 100 on S. I. M.'s list represent horse racing.
Governors, mayors, state elected officials are major players in sports as they control the purse strings. The Meadowlands complex never would have opened without government support.
When publications and websites put out lists of the Top 100 this, the Top 100 that, they are should always to be taken with a grain of salt. In 2007, BusinessWeek posted a list of the Top 100 Power People in sports with National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell on the top of the list. BusinessWeek should have asked me to be part of their panel because their list is filled with questionable choices and omissions.
BusinessWeek asked the wrong people — players, agents, sports gadflies, for their opinions and didn't know that there is a formula for sports success — government support, a large local cable TV deal and corporate support, the latter two made possible by government assistance.
It's too bad because that Power 100 list might be far more accurate with real sports business experts than the BusinessWeek 100 that was presented. There really is nothing on the list that indicates that the panelists thought about the UEFA 2008 football tournament. That happens to be the second most watched sports event in the world behind the World Cup.
There is nothing about cricket or boxing on the list. The National Hockey League Commissioner is rated just 27th on the list even though the NHL has lots of eyeballs watching its product in Europe far more eyeballs than the NFL on that continent.
The list also was too United States-centric. The oddity here is that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell heads a highly successfully United States business that is attempting to catch up with Soccer, Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association and yes even the downtrodden National Hockey League in the global community. The list places Los Angeles Kings, Los Angeles Galaxy and AEG owner Phillip Anschutz at number 21. Anschutz may be the most powerful man in sports globally. Anschutz's LA Kings opened the 2007-08 National Hockey League season in London in the London arena he owns against the Anaheim Ducks. .
Anschutz controlled most of the franchises in Major League Soccer and brought David Beckham to America. National Basketball Association Commissioner David Stern will tell you that London, England is the most ready city in Europe for an NBA franchise thanks to Anschutz.
Anschutz is also a major force behind the 2012 London Olympics.
The list has International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge but absent was the heads of the 2008 Beijing Summer Games, the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games, the 2012 London Summer Games and the 2014 Sochi Winter Games. That is worth noting because US Presidential candidate Mitt Romney launched his political career by running the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games. From there he ran for Governor of Massachusetts and may be attempting to get the Republican nomination for President in 2012.
Of course sports can be a great stepping stone. United States President George W. Bush was a two percent owner of the Texas Rangers baseball team and its general managing partner but he was never considered a Top 100 performer in sports during his days as a minority owner of a baseball team.
Texas Rangers and Dallas Stars owner Thomas O. Hicks, a major financial support of George W. Bush's 1994 and 1998 gubernatorial races in Texas and 2000 and 2004 Presidential bids is not on the list. Hicks and Montreal Canadiens owner George N. Gillett, Jr. purchased Liverpool P. C. in the English Premiere League and are building a football stadium in the English city that is more known for being the home of the Beatles John Lennon, Paul Mc Cartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr to Americans but Liverpool football has a long history. Tampa Bay Buccaneers owner Malcolm Glazier isn't on the BusinessWeek 100 Power list either. Glazier owns the most recognizable sports brand internationally, Manchester United. Manchester United football is a lot better known globally than the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Hicks and Gillett recently sold Liverpool to Boston Red Sox owner John Henry.
Two glaring omissions in the 2007 list came from the world of the original cable TV investors, Ted Rogers in Canada and Chuck Dolan in New York . Rogers owns the Toronto Blue Jays and Sportsnet, which carries Blue Jays baseball, five NHL teams telecasts and has the rights to the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics and the 2012 London Summer Olympics. Dolan, who helped found HBO, owns Madison Square Garden, the New York Knicks, New York Rangers, New York Liberty, the Madison Square Garden Network (which has Knicks basketball and the three New York City area hockey teams, the Rangers, Islanders and New Jersey Devils hockey as part of its programming along with the Liberty and other sports) and Radio City Music Hall.
Another cable TV guy, Altitude Sports and Entertainment Network-Colorado Avalanche-Denver Nuggets-St. Louis Rams-Colorado Crush-Colorado Rapids and Arsenal FC owner Stan Kroenke is also not highly thought of by BusinessWeek either. Nor is New York Islanders owner Charles Wang who is trying to raise hockey interest in China, nor are the Toronto Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment Chairman of the Board Larry Tannebaum a player on BusinessWeek's 100. Tannenbaum runs the NHL Maple Leafs, the NBA Raptors, the MLS Toronto FC, two Toronto arenas Leafs TV, Raptors TV and Maple Leaf Square which includes office space and residential living.
Why is Arnold Palmer on this list? Palmer was a great golfer in his day and businessman but if you include Palmer how do you leave off Jack Nicklaus and Greg Norman who are major figures in golf course development?
There is something else that is puzzling on the BusinessWeek 100 when it comes to NFL owners. Jerry Jones, Daniel Snyder, Robert Kraft, Robert Mc Nair and Jeffrey Lurie are the five most powerful NFL owners in that they stuck together and tried to break the NFL's "Leaguethink" philosophy during the last owners squabble over revenue sharing but neither Mc Nair nor Lurie are on the list. Denver owner Pat Bowlen was on the NFL TV committee, a group that helped negotiation the league's huge TV deals with Rupert Murdoch's FOX, General Electric's NBC, Disney's ESPN and Sumner Redstone's CBS along with DirecTV but he isn't on the list.
Where are politicians on this list? Without Anthony Williams, the former Washington mayor, there is no new baseball park in Washington; there is no Major League Baseball in the city period. Russian President Vladimir Putin belongs on this list. Putin lobbied the International Olympic Committee to get the 2014 Winter Olympics for Sochi and Putin was behind that the formation of a state corporation, which will supervise the infrastructural development of Sochi and the construction of the Olympic facilities.
Can BusinessWeek explain Vladislav Tretaik's 2007 exclusion on the list? Tretiak, the President of the Russian Ice Hockey Federation, refused to sign off on the International Ice Hockey Federation-National Hockey League transfer deal that allows young Russian players to play on an NHL in exchange for financial considerations.
Business Week also enlisted ESPN: The Magazine for data. Another mistake. ESPN may own TSN in Canada and ESPN International may carry North American sports around the world but you would never know it from the Power 100 list. Depending on ESPN reporters for business information is risky because ESPN reporters are clueless when it comes to business. What do Shane Battier, Amanda Beard, Bill Cowher, Carl Edwards, Brad Faxson, Martina Hingis, Mark Kreigel, Tommy Lasorda, Lisa Leslie and Mark Spitz know about dealing with politicians to secure taxpayers dollars for the Olympics, World Cup, Super Bowl and other major sports events globally for stadiums and arenas? What do they know about the difficulties in getting tax abatements, payment in lieu of taxes, tax increment financing in the United States, getting dollars from provincial hockey lotteries in Alberta, converting US dollars into pounds, Euros and Yuans?
If BusinessWeek did an honest list of the real power figures about 50 percent of the Top 100 would be gone. BusinessWeek failed to identify the real power behind sports, particularly in the United States. It's a fun list to scan but its little more than that. It is sort of like the Forbes list of what North American sports franchises are worth. Interesting reading but in reality a franchise is worth want someone is willing to pay for the business.
BusinessWeek's 2007 list was filled with glaring holes. In 2009, BusinessWeek had Tiger Woods as its most powerful sports player followed by Goodell and Stern. As always, no government people were on the 2009 BusinessWeek list. The S. I. M. 2010 list will be no better. BusinessWeek had Goodell ranked too high. Goodell is powerful in the US but is pretty feeble internationally compared to MLB Commissioner Bud Selig, NBA boss David Stern, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and FIFA President Blatter.
That will tell you a lot about that list.
Evan Weiner is an award winning author, radio and TV commentator and speaker on the "Business and Politics of Sports. He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
TUESDAY, 12 OCTOBER 2010 16:22
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/should-chris-christie-be-considered-one-of-the-most-powerful-people-in-sports
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
It is silly season again as a S. I. M. magazine "the only global sport business magazine targeting a dual readership that focuses exclusively on influence and affluence in today's ever-changing world" is polling readership and asking readers to name the most influential people in the world of sports. For the record, this United Kingdom-based publication has Joseph Blatter, the President of FIFA (Soccer) out in front in the voting followed by the President of the International Olympic Committee, Dr. Jacques Rogge and Herbert Hainer, the Chairman and CEO of adidas in the top three slots. The first American on the list and coming in at number four is Heidi Ueberroth, which is a head turner. Ueberroth's father Peter, of course, ran the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Committee and was the Commissioner of Major League Baseball but his daughter simply doesn't belong as high on this list as President of NBA International. Her boss David Stern as the Commissioner of the National Basketball Association has more power.
Stern is ninth on the list well ahead of NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman who is at 50. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, who cannot get his league market attention and traction outside the North American continent unlike Stern, Bettman and Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig, who is 11th. Selig is 32nd, one spot ahead of CBS Sports President Sean McManus, which makes no sense. McManus just gave the NCAA billions of dollars in a partnership with Turner Sports for the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. McManus' Turner Sports Partner David Levy is ranked 54th.
For some reason, S. I. M. magazine has San Francisco 49ers owner Denise DeBartolo York in the Top 100. York doesn't run the football team, her 29-year-old son Jed with a rather thin business resume does.
Stern, the former Teaneck resident, understands where the real power in sports is located. Stern's three legged stool formula for success always starts with government. In the United States and in a great many countries, elected officials either directly give money to sports (as in Malaysia) or set up laws that funnel money into sports whether it is through tax breaks, tax incentives, the building of facilities at taxpayers' expense and in America, the federal government changed the cable TV laws which allowed owners like the Yankees George Steinbrenner, the Mets Fred Wilpon and the Dolan-family owned New York Knicks, New York Rangers and New York Liberty to make enormous sums of money from cable TV. The feds also give tax breaks to corporations buying high item sports event seats for "business purposes."
In New Jersey, Chris Christie as Governor is more important to the sports world than the state's highest paid employees, the Rutgers football coach and the Rutgers men's and women's basketball coach. Christie has to decide the fate of the Meadowlands at some point soon along with the horse racing industry in the state. Horse racing is a sport even though none of the top 100 on S. I. M.'s list represent horse racing.
Governors, mayors, state elected officials are major players in sports as they control the purse strings. The Meadowlands complex never would have opened without government support.
When publications and websites put out lists of the Top 100 this, the Top 100 that, they are should always to be taken with a grain of salt. In 2007, BusinessWeek posted a list of the Top 100 Power People in sports with National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell on the top of the list. BusinessWeek should have asked me to be part of their panel because their list is filled with questionable choices and omissions.
BusinessWeek asked the wrong people — players, agents, sports gadflies, for their opinions and didn't know that there is a formula for sports success — government support, a large local cable TV deal and corporate support, the latter two made possible by government assistance.
It's too bad because that Power 100 list might be far more accurate with real sports business experts than the BusinessWeek 100 that was presented. There really is nothing on the list that indicates that the panelists thought about the UEFA 2008 football tournament. That happens to be the second most watched sports event in the world behind the World Cup.
There is nothing about cricket or boxing on the list. The National Hockey League Commissioner is rated just 27th on the list even though the NHL has lots of eyeballs watching its product in Europe far more eyeballs than the NFL on that continent.
The list also was too United States-centric. The oddity here is that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell heads a highly successfully United States business that is attempting to catch up with Soccer, Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association and yes even the downtrodden National Hockey League in the global community. The list places Los Angeles Kings, Los Angeles Galaxy and AEG owner Phillip Anschutz at number 21. Anschutz may be the most powerful man in sports globally. Anschutz's LA Kings opened the 2007-08 National Hockey League season in London in the London arena he owns against the Anaheim Ducks. .
Anschutz controlled most of the franchises in Major League Soccer and brought David Beckham to America. National Basketball Association Commissioner David Stern will tell you that London, England is the most ready city in Europe for an NBA franchise thanks to Anschutz.
Anschutz is also a major force behind the 2012 London Olympics.
The list has International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge but absent was the heads of the 2008 Beijing Summer Games, the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games, the 2012 London Summer Games and the 2014 Sochi Winter Games. That is worth noting because US Presidential candidate Mitt Romney launched his political career by running the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games. From there he ran for Governor of Massachusetts and may be attempting to get the Republican nomination for President in 2012.
Of course sports can be a great stepping stone. United States President George W. Bush was a two percent owner of the Texas Rangers baseball team and its general managing partner but he was never considered a Top 100 performer in sports during his days as a minority owner of a baseball team.
Texas Rangers and Dallas Stars owner Thomas O. Hicks, a major financial support of George W. Bush's 1994 and 1998 gubernatorial races in Texas and 2000 and 2004 Presidential bids is not on the list. Hicks and Montreal Canadiens owner George N. Gillett, Jr. purchased Liverpool P. C. in the English Premiere League and are building a football stadium in the English city that is more known for being the home of the Beatles John Lennon, Paul Mc Cartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr to Americans but Liverpool football has a long history. Tampa Bay Buccaneers owner Malcolm Glazier isn't on the BusinessWeek 100 Power list either. Glazier owns the most recognizable sports brand internationally, Manchester United. Manchester United football is a lot better known globally than the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Hicks and Gillett recently sold Liverpool to Boston Red Sox owner John Henry.
Two glaring omissions in the 2007 list came from the world of the original cable TV investors, Ted Rogers in Canada and Chuck Dolan in New York . Rogers owns the Toronto Blue Jays and Sportsnet, which carries Blue Jays baseball, five NHL teams telecasts and has the rights to the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics and the 2012 London Summer Olympics. Dolan, who helped found HBO, owns Madison Square Garden, the New York Knicks, New York Rangers, New York Liberty, the Madison Square Garden Network (which has Knicks basketball and the three New York City area hockey teams, the Rangers, Islanders and New Jersey Devils hockey as part of its programming along with the Liberty and other sports) and Radio City Music Hall.
Another cable TV guy, Altitude Sports and Entertainment Network-Colorado Avalanche-Denver Nuggets-St. Louis Rams-Colorado Crush-Colorado Rapids and Arsenal FC owner Stan Kroenke is also not highly thought of by BusinessWeek either. Nor is New York Islanders owner Charles Wang who is trying to raise hockey interest in China, nor are the Toronto Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment Chairman of the Board Larry Tannebaum a player on BusinessWeek's 100. Tannenbaum runs the NHL Maple Leafs, the NBA Raptors, the MLS Toronto FC, two Toronto arenas Leafs TV, Raptors TV and Maple Leaf Square which includes office space and residential living.
Why is Arnold Palmer on this list? Palmer was a great golfer in his day and businessman but if you include Palmer how do you leave off Jack Nicklaus and Greg Norman who are major figures in golf course development?
There is something else that is puzzling on the BusinessWeek 100 when it comes to NFL owners. Jerry Jones, Daniel Snyder, Robert Kraft, Robert Mc Nair and Jeffrey Lurie are the five most powerful NFL owners in that they stuck together and tried to break the NFL's "Leaguethink" philosophy during the last owners squabble over revenue sharing but neither Mc Nair nor Lurie are on the list. Denver owner Pat Bowlen was on the NFL TV committee, a group that helped negotiation the league's huge TV deals with Rupert Murdoch's FOX, General Electric's NBC, Disney's ESPN and Sumner Redstone's CBS along with DirecTV but he isn't on the list.
Where are politicians on this list? Without Anthony Williams, the former Washington mayor, there is no new baseball park in Washington; there is no Major League Baseball in the city period. Russian President Vladimir Putin belongs on this list. Putin lobbied the International Olympic Committee to get the 2014 Winter Olympics for Sochi and Putin was behind that the formation of a state corporation, which will supervise the infrastructural development of Sochi and the construction of the Olympic facilities.
Can BusinessWeek explain Vladislav Tretaik's 2007 exclusion on the list? Tretiak, the President of the Russian Ice Hockey Federation, refused to sign off on the International Ice Hockey Federation-National Hockey League transfer deal that allows young Russian players to play on an NHL in exchange for financial considerations.
Business Week also enlisted ESPN: The Magazine for data. Another mistake. ESPN may own TSN in Canada and ESPN International may carry North American sports around the world but you would never know it from the Power 100 list. Depending on ESPN reporters for business information is risky because ESPN reporters are clueless when it comes to business. What do Shane Battier, Amanda Beard, Bill Cowher, Carl Edwards, Brad Faxson, Martina Hingis, Mark Kreigel, Tommy Lasorda, Lisa Leslie and Mark Spitz know about dealing with politicians to secure taxpayers dollars for the Olympics, World Cup, Super Bowl and other major sports events globally for stadiums and arenas? What do they know about the difficulties in getting tax abatements, payment in lieu of taxes, tax increment financing in the United States, getting dollars from provincial hockey lotteries in Alberta, converting US dollars into pounds, Euros and Yuans?
If BusinessWeek did an honest list of the real power figures about 50 percent of the Top 100 would be gone. BusinessWeek failed to identify the real power behind sports, particularly in the United States. It's a fun list to scan but its little more than that. It is sort of like the Forbes list of what North American sports franchises are worth. Interesting reading but in reality a franchise is worth want someone is willing to pay for the business.
BusinessWeek's 2007 list was filled with glaring holes. In 2009, BusinessWeek had Tiger Woods as its most powerful sports player followed by Goodell and Stern. As always, no government people were on the 2009 BusinessWeek list. The S. I. M. 2010 list will be no better. BusinessWeek had Goodell ranked too high. Goodell is powerful in the US but is pretty feeble internationally compared to MLB Commissioner Bud Selig, NBA boss David Stern, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and FIFA President Blatter.
That will tell you a lot about that list.
Evan Weiner is an award winning author, radio and TV commentator and speaker on the "Business and Politics of Sports. He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Major League Soccer's actions may provide a clue to the likelihood of a 2011 NFL lockout
By Evan Weiner
December 26, 2009
For those who follow the National Football League, here is a suggestion. Take a good, hard look at what could happen with Major League Soccer players in February because what the MLS owners, which include the New England Patriots’ Kraft family, the Kansas City Chiefs Hunt family, Seattle Seahawks owner Paul Allen, could lockout their players around February 1.
At least that is the opinion of one of Allen’s employees, Seattle Sounders goalkeeper Kasey Keller.
Keller has outlined some of the sticking points between the two sides and it sounds a lot like any other management-players association dispute centering on free agency, guaranteed contracts and money. The players want a bigger share of the revenues and the owners want to keep as much of the revenues that are generated.
Major League Soccer is not the National Football League, but collective bargaining agreements end in the NFL and the National Basketball Association in 2011. The National Hockey League might also have a contract negotiation in 2011 if the owners or players decide to pull out of their present collective bargaining agreement a year early and Major League Baseball’s collective bargaining agreement is done in 2012.
If you take a close look at the money behind the MLS, you begin to see that the same people who are behind the NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB run the MLS. In 2004, the National Hockey League ownership group decided to play hardball with the players association and locked out the players in September of that year and shut down the league for a year.
Bettman is thought to be the father of the National Basketball Association’s salary cap that was implemented in 1984.
The NHL owners wanted cost containment and a salary cap. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman gave the owners exactly want they wanted. One of Bettman’s owners in 2004 was Phil Anschutz of the Los Angeles Kings. Anschutz is still the power behind Major League Soccer with ownership of the Los Angeles Galaxy and the Houston Dynamo. At one time, Anschutz owned six MLS teams, if Phil Anschutz wants to lock out the players; chances are good that the MLS will not be preparing for the 2010 season in February.
The NHL labor action of 2004-05 had a profound affect on other sports. The National Basketball Association Commissioner David Stern, who had been Bettman’s NBA boss between 1984 and 1993, kept a close eye on the NHL negotiations and certainly had a lot of leverage in his negotiations with NBA players. Stern could always point to the NHL players and tell NBA players look we can do the same to you.
There was a quick agreement between the NBA owners and players in 2005 and Major League Baseball, whose interim commissioner Bud Selig in 1994 when the baseball players went on strike was emotional at a news conference when the baseball playoffs and World Series were about to go down the drain in saying he heard from a hockey owner, presumably Chicago’s Bill Wirtz, that the baseball owners needed to hang in and not cave into the players.
Whether people or fans want to believe this or not, Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League are tied at the hip through overlapping ownership of not only teams (Texas Rangers-Dallas Stars Tom Hicks, the New York Knicks- Rangers Cablevision/Dolan Family, the Philadelphia Flyers and 76ers, Comcast, Chicago White Sox-Bulls, Jerry Reinsdorf. The Toronto Maple Leafs-Raptors-Toronto FC/MLS, Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment to just name a few), there are overlapping ownership of regional cable TV networks as well (Reinsdorf, the Wirtz and the Chicago Cubs each have a piece of the Chicago regional network, the New York Yankees and the New Jersey Nets have an agreement with the YES Network, the Boston Red Sox group owns 80 percent of the New England Sports Network with the other 20 percent in the hands of the Boston Bruins group just to name a few).
The MLS has ties to the NHL (Anschutz, the Maple Leafs, St. Louis’ Dave Checketts, Colorado’s Kroenke Sports Enterprises), the NBA (Kroenke), Major League Baseball (Oakland’s Lewis Wolff, San Francisco’s William H. C. Chang) so this is not a minor league even though the MLS is not recognized as one of the top soccer leagues in the world. In fact, it is probably more of a minor league based on talent and the league has problems attracting major talent because of the salary cap.
The exception being Anschutz’s signing of David Beckham. But it is Anschutz’s league, he can write the rules if he so chooses.
The MLS is in a bit of a bind. Will American football fans notice if the league doesn’t operate in 2010 with the World Cup taking place? The World Cup supersedes the English Premiership and all the other more prominent leagues globally and people cheer for their home country. The World Cup qualifier in 1969 set off a four-day war between El Salvador and Honduras. Earlier this year,
Egypt and Algeria nearly had an international incident after reports that Algerian fans attacked Egyptian partisans after Algeria beat Egypt in a qualifier in Khartoum, Sudan that escalated into a rowdy protest by Egyptian partisans at the Algerian Embassy in Cairo that ended with 20 arrests, dozens of Egyptian police suffering injuries and 15 cars damaged.
There is not that sort of passion for football in the United States or Canada.
Of course the same thing was said about the National Hockey League in 2004 and 2005, did fans really miss the NHL? The truth is that owners don’t want fans, they want customers who don’t mind paying top dollar or loonie to attend games, corporations bought tickets then as an inducement for business and since the regional sports cable TV networks are owned by teams or people like Rupert Murdoch (who is heavily involved in funding Major League Baseball, the NFL and teams in both the NHL and NBA), there was no pressure from the regionals to settle the dispute.
To this date, no cable subscriber in the United States has been reimbursed for missed games from the 1994 NHL lockout or the 2004-05 lockout, nor has more been returned from the 1998-99 NBA lockout or the various Major League Baseball work stoppages.
The corporate ticket buyers along with marketing partners returned to the NHL. The MLS has major TV partners, major sponsors and is building a corporate base and has been successful in getting municipalities to fund new stadiums around North America. More than likely, any potential lockout will blow over but you won’t see the baseball-like diehards screaming they will never attend a game again because of greedy players.
It is still too early in the negotiating game to say there will be or will not be an MLS lockout. But owners like Kraft, Hunt and Allen (presuming his health problems will allow him to monitor the situation, Allen is a minority owner of the Sounders) could tip their collective hand in the National Football League's bargaining by backing a MLS lockout. The MLS might be an after thought to most of the remaining American newspapers sports editors and to American sports talk radio, but it is the rabbit in the race, the MLS will set the pace in what might be a very tumultuous few years in sports starting in February.
evanjweiner@yahoo.com
December 26, 2009
For those who follow the National Football League, here is a suggestion. Take a good, hard look at what could happen with Major League Soccer players in February because what the MLS owners, which include the New England Patriots’ Kraft family, the Kansas City Chiefs Hunt family, Seattle Seahawks owner Paul Allen, could lockout their players around February 1.
At least that is the opinion of one of Allen’s employees, Seattle Sounders goalkeeper Kasey Keller.
Keller has outlined some of the sticking points between the two sides and it sounds a lot like any other management-players association dispute centering on free agency, guaranteed contracts and money. The players want a bigger share of the revenues and the owners want to keep as much of the revenues that are generated.
Major League Soccer is not the National Football League, but collective bargaining agreements end in the NFL and the National Basketball Association in 2011. The National Hockey League might also have a contract negotiation in 2011 if the owners or players decide to pull out of their present collective bargaining agreement a year early and Major League Baseball’s collective bargaining agreement is done in 2012.
If you take a close look at the money behind the MLS, you begin to see that the same people who are behind the NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB run the MLS. In 2004, the National Hockey League ownership group decided to play hardball with the players association and locked out the players in September of that year and shut down the league for a year.
Bettman is thought to be the father of the National Basketball Association’s salary cap that was implemented in 1984.
The NHL owners wanted cost containment and a salary cap. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman gave the owners exactly want they wanted. One of Bettman’s owners in 2004 was Phil Anschutz of the Los Angeles Kings. Anschutz is still the power behind Major League Soccer with ownership of the Los Angeles Galaxy and the Houston Dynamo. At one time, Anschutz owned six MLS teams, if Phil Anschutz wants to lock out the players; chances are good that the MLS will not be preparing for the 2010 season in February.
The NHL labor action of 2004-05 had a profound affect on other sports. The National Basketball Association Commissioner David Stern, who had been Bettman’s NBA boss between 1984 and 1993, kept a close eye on the NHL negotiations and certainly had a lot of leverage in his negotiations with NBA players. Stern could always point to the NHL players and tell NBA players look we can do the same to you.
There was a quick agreement between the NBA owners and players in 2005 and Major League Baseball, whose interim commissioner Bud Selig in 1994 when the baseball players went on strike was emotional at a news conference when the baseball playoffs and World Series were about to go down the drain in saying he heard from a hockey owner, presumably Chicago’s Bill Wirtz, that the baseball owners needed to hang in and not cave into the players.
Whether people or fans want to believe this or not, Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League are tied at the hip through overlapping ownership of not only teams (Texas Rangers-Dallas Stars Tom Hicks, the New York Knicks- Rangers Cablevision/Dolan Family, the Philadelphia Flyers and 76ers, Comcast, Chicago White Sox-Bulls, Jerry Reinsdorf. The Toronto Maple Leafs-Raptors-Toronto FC/MLS, Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment to just name a few), there are overlapping ownership of regional cable TV networks as well (Reinsdorf, the Wirtz and the Chicago Cubs each have a piece of the Chicago regional network, the New York Yankees and the New Jersey Nets have an agreement with the YES Network, the Boston Red Sox group owns 80 percent of the New England Sports Network with the other 20 percent in the hands of the Boston Bruins group just to name a few).
The MLS has ties to the NHL (Anschutz, the Maple Leafs, St. Louis’ Dave Checketts, Colorado’s Kroenke Sports Enterprises), the NBA (Kroenke), Major League Baseball (Oakland’s Lewis Wolff, San Francisco’s William H. C. Chang) so this is not a minor league even though the MLS is not recognized as one of the top soccer leagues in the world. In fact, it is probably more of a minor league based on talent and the league has problems attracting major talent because of the salary cap.
The exception being Anschutz’s signing of David Beckham. But it is Anschutz’s league, he can write the rules if he so chooses.
The MLS is in a bit of a bind. Will American football fans notice if the league doesn’t operate in 2010 with the World Cup taking place? The World Cup supersedes the English Premiership and all the other more prominent leagues globally and people cheer for their home country. The World Cup qualifier in 1969 set off a four-day war between El Salvador and Honduras. Earlier this year,
Egypt and Algeria nearly had an international incident after reports that Algerian fans attacked Egyptian partisans after Algeria beat Egypt in a qualifier in Khartoum, Sudan that escalated into a rowdy protest by Egyptian partisans at the Algerian Embassy in Cairo that ended with 20 arrests, dozens of Egyptian police suffering injuries and 15 cars damaged.
There is not that sort of passion for football in the United States or Canada.
Of course the same thing was said about the National Hockey League in 2004 and 2005, did fans really miss the NHL? The truth is that owners don’t want fans, they want customers who don’t mind paying top dollar or loonie to attend games, corporations bought tickets then as an inducement for business and since the regional sports cable TV networks are owned by teams or people like Rupert Murdoch (who is heavily involved in funding Major League Baseball, the NFL and teams in both the NHL and NBA), there was no pressure from the regionals to settle the dispute.
To this date, no cable subscriber in the United States has been reimbursed for missed games from the 1994 NHL lockout or the 2004-05 lockout, nor has more been returned from the 1998-99 NBA lockout or the various Major League Baseball work stoppages.
The corporate ticket buyers along with marketing partners returned to the NHL. The MLS has major TV partners, major sponsors and is building a corporate base and has been successful in getting municipalities to fund new stadiums around North America. More than likely, any potential lockout will blow over but you won’t see the baseball-like diehards screaming they will never attend a game again because of greedy players.
It is still too early in the negotiating game to say there will be or will not be an MLS lockout. But owners like Kraft, Hunt and Allen (presuming his health problems will allow him to monitor the situation, Allen is a minority owner of the Sounders) could tip their collective hand in the National Football League's bargaining by backing a MLS lockout. The MLS might be an after thought to most of the remaining American newspapers sports editors and to American sports talk radio, but it is the rabbit in the race, the MLS will set the pace in what might be a very tumultuous few years in sports starting in February.
evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)