New York City Marathon is area's biggest one-day sports event
THURSDAY, 04 NOVEMBER 2010 08:49
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/new-york-city-marathon-is-areas-biggest-one-day-sports-event
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
There is no football game at the Meadowlands this Sunday as the both New Jersey teams are on the road with the Jets in Detroit and the Giants in Seattle so there cannot be a side by side comparison of two Sunday area sporting events and judge both sports economic impact.
Still a question should be raised.
What is more important to the local economy? A National Football League game or a marathon?
The answer is simple.
The New York City Marathon is the biggest one-day economic sports event in the New York City area and there probably is some residual impact in New Jersey. The New York Road Runners Club estimates the economic impact of the annual event to be about $250 million. That is a bit less than the Super Bowl economic impact and while money numbers can be argued from sport to sport, the New York City Marathon might actually really have a significant economic impact on the area.
After all, the 2009 Marathon drew 40,000 runners and a good many of them were not from the metropolitan area so those runners and their families would either have to drive, take a train or fly into one of the New York City airports. The travelers would have to stay at local hotels, eat at local restaurants and use local mass transportation.
It is highly unlikely that either the Jets or Giants can get more than 20,000 visitors to rent hotel rooms for a week, use local restaurants for a week or even hold a football fan for a week even during the Super Bowl. The Mets, Yankees, Devils, Islanders, Rangers, Knicks, Nets, Rutgers football, Red Bulls combined couldn't do that in a week.
The marathon visitors aren't a Super Bowl crowd where high rollers parachute into an area on Friday night and leave by Monday afternoon. Participants in the marathon, everyday people not super athletes; actually spend time in the area.
In 2007, the New York Road Runners claimed that "Marathon participants and spectators spend $71 million on hotels, $45 million on food and beverages, $42 million on retail merchandise, over $16 million on entertainment, $14 million on transportation, and $11 million on running and fitness gear at the New York City Marathon Health and
Fitness Expo."
The Road Runners study also claimed "that 15 percent of the runners had an income of more than $250,000 with an overall average household income of $130,000. The study also suggests that runners are likely to spend more money than an average tourist because they view the race as a celebratory event. Half of those runners come from abroad and stay in the city for an average of six days."
Former New York City Mayor David Dinkins earlier this week said the marathon is the top one-day economic impact event and that tennis' US Open during his days as mayor between 1988 and 1992 was the biggest sports event in the city as the event generated more financial good for the city than the Yankees, Mets, Knicks and Rangers combined.
The traditional sports, baseball, basketball, football, hockey and soccer are local market driven. Marathons and tennis are globally fueled and New York is still a major international destination.
Because a marathon is international in scope, the New York City Marathon served a major purpose back in 2001 in the days following the 911 attacks on the two World Trade Center towers. It was the first international event that took place after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and it showed the city was open for business.
The 2001 New York City Marathon did more for the area than the 2001 World Series, which featured the Yankees and the Arizona Diamondbacks and here is why:
That marathon had about 30,000 runners and about two million people on the streets. It showed the world that the bruised New York City area might have been knocked down but not knocked out. The World Series was for domestic consumption and there was a photo opportunity for President George W. Bush to throw out the first pitch and that is not to demean the former president or baseball but running is a global sport, baseball is not.
For even more New Jersey sports, visit the NJNR Press Box
The ex-president's pitch in Yankee Stadium was a powerful message but not as strong as more than 30,000 people running not far from lower Manhattan and two million people lining the streets to watch them. Visually that was a strong message in Kenya, Australia and other countries that had runners in that year's race.
In 2001, the Road Runners claimed that the 2000 race added $114,693,883 to the city's bottom line. That was the claim and it might be partially right. In 2001, it was estimated that 10,000 foreigners participated in the race and that another 10,000 came from outside of the New York area. Two-thirds of the field was from outside the New York market.
The hotels will make money. The Sheraton New York Hotel and Towers, an official marathon partner, has rooms starting at $399 a night. The marathon has "official" travel partners in 40 countries.
The marathon will be followed by a concert that will be broadcast nationally on radio stations throughout the United States featuring Blues Traveler.
Local games, whether they are played by the Giants or the Jets or Nets or Devils over a full season, will not bring in 10,000 international visitors for a one-day event. The Super Bowl could, but only if the National Football league was really a global entity and despite the league's best efforts, NFL football is largely an American sport that appeals to Americans, some Canadians, some Mexicans and a scattering of others around the world.
The New York City Marathon gets an estimated 315 million eyeballs in front of televisions around the world, which is more than the Super Bowl. The NFL doesn't come close to that number worldwide.
The New York City Marathon is a big deal around the world, bigger than a weekly NFL game in East Rutherford ever could be. It is an international event.
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." He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Showing posts with label Super Bowl. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Super Bowl. Show all posts
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Meadowlands Super Bowl the worst-kept secret in sports
Meadowlands Super Bowl the worst-kept secret in sports
TUESDAY, 25 MAY 2010 21:16
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
If you understand how National Football League owners operate, then it is really no surprise that the 2014 Super Bowl will be played in the Meadowlands. The NFL has been targeting a New York/New Jersey Super Bowl for years, first as part of a Manhattan west side Olympics/football stadium and then after that project failed in 2005, East Rutherford, N.J., at the new football stadium that would eventually replace Giants Stadium.
The new place didn't have a roof, but that was no big deal, even though the NFL likes warm weather sites for the extravaganza. The NFL uses the Super Bowl for leverage in getting new facilities and rewarded Houston, Detroit and Glendale, Arizona for building new stadiums with the Super Bowl. Next February's Super Bowl is at Jerry Jones' new Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas. If there is a 2011 NFL season, the big game will be played in Indianapolis in 2012. Indianapolis, despite the dome on the stadium, has been given the game because locals built a new stadium.
New Orleans gets the 2013 game partly because of guilt over Hurricane Katrina and because Louisiana came up with money to redo the Superdome and worked out a new lease arrangement with Saints owner Tom Benson.
The awarding of Super Bowls to communities who have done "the right thing" by NFL owners should not go unnoticed in places like San Diego, Santa Clara, California, Los Angeles and St. Paul, Minnesota. The NFL ownership is telling you, do the right thing – provide public money, and tax breaks such as payments in lieu of taxes or tax increment financing – and you will get a Super Bowl complete with the economic impact of at least $300 million although that figure is open to conjecture particularly in places like Miami, Tampa and Glendale, AZ., where "snowbirds" are displaced in favor of people coming to the Super Bowl.
Local motels and hotels raise their rates for the game but if the hotel/motel is part of a chain, the extra money goes back to the home office instead of the community. Hotel/motel workers do not get paid more money just because it is Super Bowl week. The economic impact is less than estimated in places like Miami, Tampa and Glendale and is substantially higher in Detroit and Minneapolis-St. Paul where there are not a lot of tourists in February. New York has a lull during February and this will bring some people to the area.
The New York/New Jersey Super Bowl's first impact might be felt in Santa Clara, California a week from Tuesday when voters will be asked to provide funding for a new San Francisco 49ers stadium. There has been one Bay Area Super Bowl at Stanford Stadium. The Super Bowl and the "economic impact" is a carrot that will be dangled before voters. No one knows exactly how much the Santa Clara stadium will cost or if it will house one team, the 49ers, or two, the 49ers and Oakland Raiders, or even if 49ers owner John York has the money to actually fund this nearly billion dollar building but proponents should be pointing to the Meadowlands Stadium as proof in the "if they build it, they will come" mantra.
South Florida may be out of the Super Bowl running because the NFL just doesn't like the present set up of the stadium and wants major improvements at the Miami Dolphins home just a few years after a major renovation. New York/New Jersey's 2014 win might be just the jolt that is needed to get someone to pony up a quarter of a billion dollars to fix up the Dolphins home. The NFL doesn't need Miami now that the door has been opened to Super Bowls in the metropolitan area and also Washington, Foxboro, MA., Philadelphia, Chicago, Denver and other cold weather cities.
San Diego and Minnesota are out of the Super Bowl rotation. The NFL wants no part of the more than four-decades old San Diego stadium and the nearly three-decades old Metrodome in Minneapolis. The Minnesota legislature tried to put together a Vikings stadium package in the recently concluded session but the clock ran out. They will try again next year with the Vikings/Metrodome lease expiring at the end of 2011. There seems to be nothing going on in Los Angeles in terms of getting a new stadium built and the NFL's hopes of holding Super Bowl L (50 for those who don't like Roman numerals) in 2016 seem to be fading. The Los Angeles Coliseum will still be there but it is not an NFL-friendly stadium.
The NFL is a business and can do what it wants with Super Bowls. The Giants' and Jets' new building lacks a corporate naming rights partner. The two teams might pick one up with the Super Bowl coming as Joe Robbie/Dolphin and a-host-of-naming-rights-partners Stadium did prior to this year's Super Bowl in Broward County in South Florida. But Jones' Cowboys Stadium is still Cowboys Stadium and the Super Bowl is just nine months away.
The Super Bowl is a big-ticket item and is not designed for the average fan. The high rollers are around for just Super Bowl weekend and just to clear up one misconception that Jacksonville learned the hard way, the high rollers just want to be seen at the game and have no intentions of relocating their business or opening up a branch for their business just because they are in town for a game. Jacksonville thought that would happen in 2005.
It didn't.
People are having trouble understanding the rationale behind the New York/New Jersey Super Bowl. Woody Johnson and John Mara are in the club, the owners club, and they were taken care of by their brethren. Just wait until the NFL decides to hold a game in London – not Ontario, but England. The Super Bowl might be a TV ratings monster in the U.S. and grab some Canadian viewership along with Mexico but globally the NFL is a dud.
The NFL would kill for the eyeballs that India/Pakistan gets for cricket or table tennis watchers in China. New York/New Jersey just might be the launching pad in a whole new chapter for the Super Bowl with just one goal in mind. Get as much money as possible from the Super Bowl franchise no matter what the weather is.
Evan Weiner is an author, radio-TV commentator, lecturer on the Business of Sports and can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
LAST UPDATED ( TUESDAY, 25 MAY 2010
TUESDAY, 25 MAY 2010 21:16
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
If you understand how National Football League owners operate, then it is really no surprise that the 2014 Super Bowl will be played in the Meadowlands. The NFL has been targeting a New York/New Jersey Super Bowl for years, first as part of a Manhattan west side Olympics/football stadium and then after that project failed in 2005, East Rutherford, N.J., at the new football stadium that would eventually replace Giants Stadium.
The new place didn't have a roof, but that was no big deal, even though the NFL likes warm weather sites for the extravaganza. The NFL uses the Super Bowl for leverage in getting new facilities and rewarded Houston, Detroit and Glendale, Arizona for building new stadiums with the Super Bowl. Next February's Super Bowl is at Jerry Jones' new Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas. If there is a 2011 NFL season, the big game will be played in Indianapolis in 2012. Indianapolis, despite the dome on the stadium, has been given the game because locals built a new stadium.
New Orleans gets the 2013 game partly because of guilt over Hurricane Katrina and because Louisiana came up with money to redo the Superdome and worked out a new lease arrangement with Saints owner Tom Benson.
The awarding of Super Bowls to communities who have done "the right thing" by NFL owners should not go unnoticed in places like San Diego, Santa Clara, California, Los Angeles and St. Paul, Minnesota. The NFL ownership is telling you, do the right thing – provide public money, and tax breaks such as payments in lieu of taxes or tax increment financing – and you will get a Super Bowl complete with the economic impact of at least $300 million although that figure is open to conjecture particularly in places like Miami, Tampa and Glendale, AZ., where "snowbirds" are displaced in favor of people coming to the Super Bowl.
Local motels and hotels raise their rates for the game but if the hotel/motel is part of a chain, the extra money goes back to the home office instead of the community. Hotel/motel workers do not get paid more money just because it is Super Bowl week. The economic impact is less than estimated in places like Miami, Tampa and Glendale and is substantially higher in Detroit and Minneapolis-St. Paul where there are not a lot of tourists in February. New York has a lull during February and this will bring some people to the area.
The New York/New Jersey Super Bowl's first impact might be felt in Santa Clara, California a week from Tuesday when voters will be asked to provide funding for a new San Francisco 49ers stadium. There has been one Bay Area Super Bowl at Stanford Stadium. The Super Bowl and the "economic impact" is a carrot that will be dangled before voters. No one knows exactly how much the Santa Clara stadium will cost or if it will house one team, the 49ers, or two, the 49ers and Oakland Raiders, or even if 49ers owner John York has the money to actually fund this nearly billion dollar building but proponents should be pointing to the Meadowlands Stadium as proof in the "if they build it, they will come" mantra.
South Florida may be out of the Super Bowl running because the NFL just doesn't like the present set up of the stadium and wants major improvements at the Miami Dolphins home just a few years after a major renovation. New York/New Jersey's 2014 win might be just the jolt that is needed to get someone to pony up a quarter of a billion dollars to fix up the Dolphins home. The NFL doesn't need Miami now that the door has been opened to Super Bowls in the metropolitan area and also Washington, Foxboro, MA., Philadelphia, Chicago, Denver and other cold weather cities.
San Diego and Minnesota are out of the Super Bowl rotation. The NFL wants no part of the more than four-decades old San Diego stadium and the nearly three-decades old Metrodome in Minneapolis. The Minnesota legislature tried to put together a Vikings stadium package in the recently concluded session but the clock ran out. They will try again next year with the Vikings/Metrodome lease expiring at the end of 2011. There seems to be nothing going on in Los Angeles in terms of getting a new stadium built and the NFL's hopes of holding Super Bowl L (50 for those who don't like Roman numerals) in 2016 seem to be fading. The Los Angeles Coliseum will still be there but it is not an NFL-friendly stadium.
The NFL is a business and can do what it wants with Super Bowls. The Giants' and Jets' new building lacks a corporate naming rights partner. The two teams might pick one up with the Super Bowl coming as Joe Robbie/Dolphin and a-host-of-naming-rights-partners Stadium did prior to this year's Super Bowl in Broward County in South Florida. But Jones' Cowboys Stadium is still Cowboys Stadium and the Super Bowl is just nine months away.
The Super Bowl is a big-ticket item and is not designed for the average fan. The high rollers are around for just Super Bowl weekend and just to clear up one misconception that Jacksonville learned the hard way, the high rollers just want to be seen at the game and have no intentions of relocating their business or opening up a branch for their business just because they are in town for a game. Jacksonville thought that would happen in 2005.
It didn't.
People are having trouble understanding the rationale behind the New York/New Jersey Super Bowl. Woody Johnson and John Mara are in the club, the owners club, and they were taken care of by their brethren. Just wait until the NFL decides to hold a game in London – not Ontario, but England. The Super Bowl might be a TV ratings monster in the U.S. and grab some Canadian viewership along with Mexico but globally the NFL is a dud.
The NFL would kill for the eyeballs that India/Pakistan gets for cricket or table tennis watchers in China. New York/New Jersey just might be the launching pad in a whole new chapter for the Super Bowl with just one goal in mind. Get as much money as possible from the Super Bowl franchise no matter what the weather is.
Evan Weiner is an author, radio-TV commentator, lecturer on the Business of Sports and can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
LAST UPDATED ( TUESDAY, 25 MAY 2010
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Redstone and CBS Back in a Political Tug of War at the Super Bowl
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-3926-Business-of-Sports-Examiner~y2010m1d30-Redstone-and-CBS-back-in-a-political-tug-of-war-at-the-Super-Bowl#
Redstone and CBS Back in a Political Tug of War at the Super Bowl
By Evan Weiner
January 30, 2010
(New York, N. Y.) --- Perhaps Sumner Redstone should just say no to the Super Bowl because it seems Redstone’s CBS television network is always involved in some controversy in the presentation of the Super Bowl. Redstone’s CBS is making news because the network has accepted money from a group that plans to air an anti-abortion commercial during next week’s game but at the same time has rejected an ad from ManCrunch, a gay dating website.
Redstone’s network released a statement explaining why CBS will not show the ad during the Super Bowl.
"After reviewing the ad - which is entirely commercial in nature - our Standards and Practices department decided not to accept this particular spot. As always, we are open to working with the client on alternative submissions," according to the CBS publicity department.
Too bad Redstone’s Standards and Practices department doesn’t review the Redstone-owned MTV show Jersey Shore or some of the other MTV shows that are loaded with sexual innuendos including promoting lesbianism. Redstone bowed to pressure from someone in rejecting the ManCrunch ad but Redstone, CBS President Les Moonvees and the rest of the CBS upper management has no problem with the Focus on the Family, Celebrate Family, Celebrate Life spot featuring college quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow.
Redstone’s CBS network enjoys a much higher profile than his ratings challenged MTV. Redstone apparently doesn’t care that the New Jersey Italian American Legislative Caucus asked his Viacom company to take Jersey Shore off the air. In a letter to Redstone and Viacom, caucus chairman Joseph Vitale said the show is "wildly offensive."
Jersey Shore is just a cable TV show, nothing more, nothing less on a network that produces minimal ratings. The Super Bowl is American television’s biggest event and Redstone is going to get protests from various groups over his or someone at CBS decisions to air one spot and decline another spot.
Redstone and CBS may have made their commercial decisions with the 2004 Super Bowl in mind. Redstone and CBS had the television rights to the game and Redstone’s MTV cable network produced the halftime show.
The Super Bowl XXXVIII did not start well for political activitists as CBS rejected an ad from the political group, MoveOn.org called “Bush in 30 seconds” under a network policy that apparently dated back to when William Paley owned the network “controversial issues of public importance.”
No one seems to remember that New England beat Carolina in that game but people do remember that the singer Janet Jackson’s breast popped out of her clothes due to what fellow singer Justin Timberlake called a wardrobe malfunction during halftime of that game.
Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” lasted scant seconds but it set off a political firestorm even though very few people actually witnessed the event live on TV and it wasn’t until people who TiVo’ed the show and got a glimpse of the “wardrobe malfunction.” The MTV produced halftime show also featured the singer Nelly gesturing towards his crotch and the singer Kid Rock wearing a poncho made from an American flag. There were also a number of strange commercials during the presentation including a guaranteed a cure for erectile dysfunction, and two beer commercials, one of which featured a horse that suffered from flatulence and another that had a dog attacking male genitalia.
Immediately Republican members of Congress jumped into the halftime show “costume malfunction” and some House members stood on the steps in front of the Capitol criticized CBS and the NFL the morning after. Zell Miller, a Democrat from Georgia, took to the Senate floor and took aim at the halftime show saying something about how the “wardrobe malfunction” was a sign or declining morality in America. Political groups seized the incident to gain exposure and the Federal Communications Commission levied a $550,000 fine against Redstone, CBS and 20 TV stations because of the halftime show. FCC fines would rise as a result of the incident from $27,500 to $325,000 per incident.
In Canada, where Global TV used the CBS feed, there were a few complaints but the CTRC let the matter go. The game was televised globally and the “costume malfunction” seemed not to be a problem.
There were other ramifications from the Jackson “costume malfunction.” The NFL decided the halftime show needed a change and “safe” acts were hired beginning in 2005. Those acts included the Beatles Paul McCartney who spent nine days in jail in Japan for possessing marijuana, the Rolling Stones, a group that featured Keith Richards who was busted on a heroin charge in Canada in 1977 and this year, The Who, a group who had two members die of apparent drug use, Keith Moon and John Entwhistle will perform.
MTV was fired as the halftime producer.
Additionally, the NFL dropped Levitra as the league’s erectile dysfunction advertising partner in 2007 and Anheuser-Busch promised it would never make commercial that featured a horse suffering from flatulence or a dog nipping at a male’s crouch or similar commercials ever again.
Television (and radio) also took steps to clean up shows. In 2005, the National Basketball Association suggested to the singer Beyonce Knowles to sing Crazy in Love rather than Naughty Girl at the NBA All-Star Game. Live programming was put on a delay just in case something went awry. The halftime show also impacted network TV soap operas, and award shows such as the Grammy’s and the Academy Awards. Sixty-five ABC TV stations were so concerned about the newly found “indecency” issue that they refused to show the networks presentation of the moving “Saving Private Ryan” because on Valentine’s Day 2004 because of the film’s violence.
Over-the-air TV and radio are subjected to FCC laws, cable TV is not. The American public owes the airwaves, Redstone is merely a steward who oversees a network and network owned and operated TV stations in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia and other cities.
The halftime incident became a political campaign issue. Jackson and Timberlake are still big names in the music industry globally even though they set off a political firestorm in 2004.
Redstone and CBS are still fighting the FCC fines.
The Super Bowl has been sanitized as much as possible because of a less than three second incident in 2004. Redstone and CBS will now face a maelstrom of protests from the left because of their decisions to say yes to Focus on the Family’s spot and no to ManCrunch.
The Super Bowl, which was born in Senate and House chambers in the summer and fall of 1966 as the result of Congress giving the go ahead to the merger of the National Football League and the American Football League, is a potent political force. Arizona now celebrates Martin Luther King Day because the NFL wanted to put the Big Game in Tempe and was forced to pull it from Tempe in 1993 after Arizona refused to recognize the day. The NFL awarded Tempe the game in 1996 after Arizona voters said yes to making Martin Luther King Day a state holiday. The NFL rewards cities that build stadiums with a Super Bowl and the 2004 game changed TV.
Redstone and CBS had the 2004 game and they have it this year and the Redstone and the CBS commercial decisions have ignited political debate. Welcome back to the Super Bowl Sumner Redstone, Les Moonvees and CBS.
evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Redstone and CBS Back in a Political Tug of War at the Super Bowl
By Evan Weiner
January 30, 2010
(New York, N. Y.) --- Perhaps Sumner Redstone should just say no to the Super Bowl because it seems Redstone’s CBS television network is always involved in some controversy in the presentation of the Super Bowl. Redstone’s CBS is making news because the network has accepted money from a group that plans to air an anti-abortion commercial during next week’s game but at the same time has rejected an ad from ManCrunch, a gay dating website.
Redstone’s network released a statement explaining why CBS will not show the ad during the Super Bowl.
"After reviewing the ad - which is entirely commercial in nature - our Standards and Practices department decided not to accept this particular spot. As always, we are open to working with the client on alternative submissions," according to the CBS publicity department.
Too bad Redstone’s Standards and Practices department doesn’t review the Redstone-owned MTV show Jersey Shore or some of the other MTV shows that are loaded with sexual innuendos including promoting lesbianism. Redstone bowed to pressure from someone in rejecting the ManCrunch ad but Redstone, CBS President Les Moonvees and the rest of the CBS upper management has no problem with the Focus on the Family, Celebrate Family, Celebrate Life spot featuring college quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow.
Redstone’s CBS network enjoys a much higher profile than his ratings challenged MTV. Redstone apparently doesn’t care that the New Jersey Italian American Legislative Caucus asked his Viacom company to take Jersey Shore off the air. In a letter to Redstone and Viacom, caucus chairman Joseph Vitale said the show is "wildly offensive."
Jersey Shore is just a cable TV show, nothing more, nothing less on a network that produces minimal ratings. The Super Bowl is American television’s biggest event and Redstone is going to get protests from various groups over his or someone at CBS decisions to air one spot and decline another spot.
Redstone and CBS may have made their commercial decisions with the 2004 Super Bowl in mind. Redstone and CBS had the television rights to the game and Redstone’s MTV cable network produced the halftime show.
The Super Bowl XXXVIII did not start well for political activitists as CBS rejected an ad from the political group, MoveOn.org called “Bush in 30 seconds” under a network policy that apparently dated back to when William Paley owned the network “controversial issues of public importance.”
No one seems to remember that New England beat Carolina in that game but people do remember that the singer Janet Jackson’s breast popped out of her clothes due to what fellow singer Justin Timberlake called a wardrobe malfunction during halftime of that game.
Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” lasted scant seconds but it set off a political firestorm even though very few people actually witnessed the event live on TV and it wasn’t until people who TiVo’ed the show and got a glimpse of the “wardrobe malfunction.” The MTV produced halftime show also featured the singer Nelly gesturing towards his crotch and the singer Kid Rock wearing a poncho made from an American flag. There were also a number of strange commercials during the presentation including a guaranteed a cure for erectile dysfunction, and two beer commercials, one of which featured a horse that suffered from flatulence and another that had a dog attacking male genitalia.
Immediately Republican members of Congress jumped into the halftime show “costume malfunction” and some House members stood on the steps in front of the Capitol criticized CBS and the NFL the morning after. Zell Miller, a Democrat from Georgia, took to the Senate floor and took aim at the halftime show saying something about how the “wardrobe malfunction” was a sign or declining morality in America. Political groups seized the incident to gain exposure and the Federal Communications Commission levied a $550,000 fine against Redstone, CBS and 20 TV stations because of the halftime show. FCC fines would rise as a result of the incident from $27,500 to $325,000 per incident.
In Canada, where Global TV used the CBS feed, there were a few complaints but the CTRC let the matter go. The game was televised globally and the “costume malfunction” seemed not to be a problem.
There were other ramifications from the Jackson “costume malfunction.” The NFL decided the halftime show needed a change and “safe” acts were hired beginning in 2005. Those acts included the Beatles Paul McCartney who spent nine days in jail in Japan for possessing marijuana, the Rolling Stones, a group that featured Keith Richards who was busted on a heroin charge in Canada in 1977 and this year, The Who, a group who had two members die of apparent drug use, Keith Moon and John Entwhistle will perform.
MTV was fired as the halftime producer.
Additionally, the NFL dropped Levitra as the league’s erectile dysfunction advertising partner in 2007 and Anheuser-Busch promised it would never make commercial that featured a horse suffering from flatulence or a dog nipping at a male’s crouch or similar commercials ever again.
Television (and radio) also took steps to clean up shows. In 2005, the National Basketball Association suggested to the singer Beyonce Knowles to sing Crazy in Love rather than Naughty Girl at the NBA All-Star Game. Live programming was put on a delay just in case something went awry. The halftime show also impacted network TV soap operas, and award shows such as the Grammy’s and the Academy Awards. Sixty-five ABC TV stations were so concerned about the newly found “indecency” issue that they refused to show the networks presentation of the moving “Saving Private Ryan” because on Valentine’s Day 2004 because of the film’s violence.
Over-the-air TV and radio are subjected to FCC laws, cable TV is not. The American public owes the airwaves, Redstone is merely a steward who oversees a network and network owned and operated TV stations in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia and other cities.
The halftime incident became a political campaign issue. Jackson and Timberlake are still big names in the music industry globally even though they set off a political firestorm in 2004.
Redstone and CBS are still fighting the FCC fines.
The Super Bowl has been sanitized as much as possible because of a less than three second incident in 2004. Redstone and CBS will now face a maelstrom of protests from the left because of their decisions to say yes to Focus on the Family’s spot and no to ManCrunch.
The Super Bowl, which was born in Senate and House chambers in the summer and fall of 1966 as the result of Congress giving the go ahead to the merger of the National Football League and the American Football League, is a potent political force. Arizona now celebrates Martin Luther King Day because the NFL wanted to put the Big Game in Tempe and was forced to pull it from Tempe in 1993 after Arizona refused to recognize the day. The NFL awarded Tempe the game in 1996 after Arizona voters said yes to making Martin Luther King Day a state holiday. The NFL rewards cities that build stadiums with a Super Bowl and the 2004 game changed TV.
Redstone and CBS had the 2004 game and they have it this year and the Redstone and the CBS commercial decisions have ignited political debate. Welcome back to the Super Bowl Sumner Redstone, Les Moonvees and CBS.
evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Saturday, January 23, 2010
How Hale Boggs saved the Saints (and football as we know it)
How Hale Boggs saved the Saints (and football as we know it)
By Evan Weiner 01/23/10 at 12:39 pm
If the New Orleans Saints football team wins the National Football Conference championship game on Sunday, one of the first people who should carry the George Halas Trophy is Cokie Roberts. Without Cokie’s father, the Louisiana Democrat Congressman Hale Boggs and Majority Whip of the House of Representatives in the mid-1960s, there probably would not be a New Orleans Saints franchise today.
The American Football League and the National Football League announced a merger plan on June 8, 1966, but the two entities could not become one without an anti-trust exemption from Congress. For those who think a sports league commissioner’s role is limited to just making sure the fans are happy and rooting for the home team, you’re about to get a lesson on political hardball.
A sports commissioner is a hardened political lobbyist and NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle was an old hand on Capitol Hill by the summer of 1966.
In 1961, Rozelle lobbied the House and Brooklyn (NY) Democrat Emanuel Cellar in an attempt to win a limited antitrust exception so that the National Football League could sell the league’s 14 franchises as one entity to a television network.
The Sports Broadcast Act of 1961 was signed into law by President John F. Kennedy on September 30th of that year and allowed the NFL to bundle the 14 franchises and sell a package of games to a TV network (either CBS or NBC in those days). The law helped propel the NFL into a different economic orbit. The league went from a mom and pop store operation that was open about six months a year to a mega business because of the legislation, which put hundreds of thousands of dollars into every NFL owner’s pocket.
Neither the Louisiana Democrat Senator Russell Long, who was the Senate’s Majority Whip and Chairman of the Senate Financial Committee, nor Congressman Boggs were very excited about the planned football merger. Neither saw a merger benefiting New Orleans, as the city had neither an AFL nor an NFL team. New Orleans blew an opportunity at getting an AFL in December 1964 after being awarded the 1965 AFL All Star Game because a group of players and AFL owners had a social conscience.
Buffalo Bills Quarterback Jack Kemp (who was becoming very interested in politics and worked on Barry Goldwater’s 1964 Presidential campaign) and his white teammates witnessed their African-American friends, teammates and competitors being ignored at the New Orleans airport by taxis when they needed a ride to New Orleans and watched as their black teammates were barred from eating in New Orleans restaurants and staying from in the same hotels in December 1964 as they were in the Jim Crow Louisiana. There were 21 African American players who were selected to be play in the game.
The American Football League was looking to expand and decided that New Orleans would be a perfect fit for the five-year-old league. AFL owners were told by New Orleans officials not to worry about Jim Crow laws because President Johnson has signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 on July 2nd. The AFL owners’ plans included a January 1965 All-Star game at Tulane Stadium and an announcement at the game that the league was going to put a team in the city.
Kemp, who was a co-founder of the American Football League Players Association in 1964, and the white All-Stars said they would support whatever decision the 21 African Americans made during their meeting, including the possible boycott of the 1965 AFL All Star Game.
Their decision was to boycott the game.
An outraged group of AFL players called Houston Oilers owner Bud Adams and said they were going to boycott the game. The eight AFL owners league moved the contest to Houston. The boycott ended the chance that New Orleans would get an AFL team.
Louisiana businessmen were pushing for a New Orleans franchise and saw an opening.
Rozelle spoke to Boggs and Long, asking for their support, but neither budged. Rozelle was not ready to hand out an expansion team, and the two Louisiana legislators were not ready to sign off on a merger bill. Originally there was a thought of moving some teams around to satisfy the Louisiana interests with the New York Jets franchise going to Los Angeles. Daniel Reeves would take his Los Angeles Rams franchise to San Diego and replace the Chargers. Barron Hilton then would take his Chargers to New Orleans. The Oakland Raiders would be moved to either Seattle or Portland. But Rozelle and other NFL officials went before Congressman Cellar’s Subcommittee on Antitrust and assured Cellar (who rammed through the Sports Broadcast Act of 1961 legislation through the House) that no teams would be moved because of the merger. But stadiums in the future would need to have more than a 50,000 seat capacity to house an NFL franchise.
Something had to give.
Rozelle and the NFL owners relented and worked out a deal with Boggs that included a placing a team in New Orleans. Congress approved the NFL-AFL merger by giving the two competitors an anti-trust exemption, which was added as a rider to an anti-inflation tax bill on October 21, 1966.
The NFL awarded its 16th franchise to New Orleans on November 1, 1966 on All Saints Day. One other thing about the merger, NFL owners, going back through history, always liked to collect money whenever they could on business deals which allowed teams from other leagues to join the NFL or when an NFL team decided to invade the New York or Washington market. NFL owners made some serious money on the merger.
The league pocketed an $8 million expansion fee from New Orleans owner John Mecom, which was split between the 15 NFL owners. Additionally, the New York Jets ownership paid $18 million to the New York Giants ownership, and the Oakland Raiders handed over $8 million to the San Francisco 49ers as both AFL teams “invaded” NFL territories. The AFL also agreed to pay the NFL the $7.5 million it received from the Cincinnati expansion fee in 1968.
“It was the right thing to do,” said AFL founder and Kansas City Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt years later. “It consolidated the sport. It assured the continuity of every team in both leagues. There were some teams that were pretty weak financially at that point. Some teams going out of business generally accompanied previous mergers in sports. We assured that every team would stay in business. We assured the addition of new teams in Cincinnati and New Orleans. It gave the public the Super Bowl. It also provided the teams and the league with a common draft, which provided for an equal dissemination of playing talent.”
Had the NFL and AFL not merged, Tex Schramm, the longtime Dallas Cowboy President and a chief architect of the merger along with Hunt, thinks pro football would not be the strong national presence that it is today. “I think football was on its way to self destruction with the two leagues,” said Schramm. “Both sides were spending themselves into bankruptcy and there were only four or five clubs that could remain really competitive…Teams were drafting players not on the basis on whether or not they could play, but whether they could be signed. Whenever that happens then your sport is in trouble and that’s the way we were headed then.”
Of the merger, Pete Rozelle said that at the time he was “surprised that the AFL was interested or that even [we] were interested because [we] were such bitter enemies. The war was going on and we were raiding players. Obviously the terms and conditions turned out to be favorable, particularly to teams that had to take in competitors in New York and San Francisco. History shows it is a good move, a costly one but it gave the league greater strength.”
Without Hale Boggs and Russell Long, there would have been no NFL team in New Orleans and no Super Bowl. That’s why Cokie Roberts should be handed the Halas Trophy if the hometown Saints emerge victorious on Sunday afternoon.
By Evan Weiner 01/23/10 at 12:39 pm
If the New Orleans Saints football team wins the National Football Conference championship game on Sunday, one of the first people who should carry the George Halas Trophy is Cokie Roberts. Without Cokie’s father, the Louisiana Democrat Congressman Hale Boggs and Majority Whip of the House of Representatives in the mid-1960s, there probably would not be a New Orleans Saints franchise today.
The American Football League and the National Football League announced a merger plan on June 8, 1966, but the two entities could not become one without an anti-trust exemption from Congress. For those who think a sports league commissioner’s role is limited to just making sure the fans are happy and rooting for the home team, you’re about to get a lesson on political hardball.
A sports commissioner is a hardened political lobbyist and NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle was an old hand on Capitol Hill by the summer of 1966.
In 1961, Rozelle lobbied the House and Brooklyn (NY) Democrat Emanuel Cellar in an attempt to win a limited antitrust exception so that the National Football League could sell the league’s 14 franchises as one entity to a television network.
The Sports Broadcast Act of 1961 was signed into law by President John F. Kennedy on September 30th of that year and allowed the NFL to bundle the 14 franchises and sell a package of games to a TV network (either CBS or NBC in those days). The law helped propel the NFL into a different economic orbit. The league went from a mom and pop store operation that was open about six months a year to a mega business because of the legislation, which put hundreds of thousands of dollars into every NFL owner’s pocket.
Neither the Louisiana Democrat Senator Russell Long, who was the Senate’s Majority Whip and Chairman of the Senate Financial Committee, nor Congressman Boggs were very excited about the planned football merger. Neither saw a merger benefiting New Orleans, as the city had neither an AFL nor an NFL team. New Orleans blew an opportunity at getting an AFL in December 1964 after being awarded the 1965 AFL All Star Game because a group of players and AFL owners had a social conscience.
Buffalo Bills Quarterback Jack Kemp (who was becoming very interested in politics and worked on Barry Goldwater’s 1964 Presidential campaign) and his white teammates witnessed their African-American friends, teammates and competitors being ignored at the New Orleans airport by taxis when they needed a ride to New Orleans and watched as their black teammates were barred from eating in New Orleans restaurants and staying from in the same hotels in December 1964 as they were in the Jim Crow Louisiana. There were 21 African American players who were selected to be play in the game.
The American Football League was looking to expand and decided that New Orleans would be a perfect fit for the five-year-old league. AFL owners were told by New Orleans officials not to worry about Jim Crow laws because President Johnson has signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 on July 2nd. The AFL owners’ plans included a January 1965 All-Star game at Tulane Stadium and an announcement at the game that the league was going to put a team in the city.
Kemp, who was a co-founder of the American Football League Players Association in 1964, and the white All-Stars said they would support whatever decision the 21 African Americans made during their meeting, including the possible boycott of the 1965 AFL All Star Game.
Their decision was to boycott the game.
An outraged group of AFL players called Houston Oilers owner Bud Adams and said they were going to boycott the game. The eight AFL owners league moved the contest to Houston. The boycott ended the chance that New Orleans would get an AFL team.
Louisiana businessmen were pushing for a New Orleans franchise and saw an opening.
Rozelle spoke to Boggs and Long, asking for their support, but neither budged. Rozelle was not ready to hand out an expansion team, and the two Louisiana legislators were not ready to sign off on a merger bill. Originally there was a thought of moving some teams around to satisfy the Louisiana interests with the New York Jets franchise going to Los Angeles. Daniel Reeves would take his Los Angeles Rams franchise to San Diego and replace the Chargers. Barron Hilton then would take his Chargers to New Orleans. The Oakland Raiders would be moved to either Seattle or Portland. But Rozelle and other NFL officials went before Congressman Cellar’s Subcommittee on Antitrust and assured Cellar (who rammed through the Sports Broadcast Act of 1961 legislation through the House) that no teams would be moved because of the merger. But stadiums in the future would need to have more than a 50,000 seat capacity to house an NFL franchise.
Something had to give.
Rozelle and the NFL owners relented and worked out a deal with Boggs that included a placing a team in New Orleans. Congress approved the NFL-AFL merger by giving the two competitors an anti-trust exemption, which was added as a rider to an anti-inflation tax bill on October 21, 1966.
The NFL awarded its 16th franchise to New Orleans on November 1, 1966 on All Saints Day. One other thing about the merger, NFL owners, going back through history, always liked to collect money whenever they could on business deals which allowed teams from other leagues to join the NFL or when an NFL team decided to invade the New York or Washington market. NFL owners made some serious money on the merger.
The league pocketed an $8 million expansion fee from New Orleans owner John Mecom, which was split between the 15 NFL owners. Additionally, the New York Jets ownership paid $18 million to the New York Giants ownership, and the Oakland Raiders handed over $8 million to the San Francisco 49ers as both AFL teams “invaded” NFL territories. The AFL also agreed to pay the NFL the $7.5 million it received from the Cincinnati expansion fee in 1968.
“It was the right thing to do,” said AFL founder and Kansas City Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt years later. “It consolidated the sport. It assured the continuity of every team in both leagues. There were some teams that were pretty weak financially at that point. Some teams going out of business generally accompanied previous mergers in sports. We assured that every team would stay in business. We assured the addition of new teams in Cincinnati and New Orleans. It gave the public the Super Bowl. It also provided the teams and the league with a common draft, which provided for an equal dissemination of playing talent.”
Had the NFL and AFL not merged, Tex Schramm, the longtime Dallas Cowboy President and a chief architect of the merger along with Hunt, thinks pro football would not be the strong national presence that it is today. “I think football was on its way to self destruction with the two leagues,” said Schramm. “Both sides were spending themselves into bankruptcy and there were only four or five clubs that could remain really competitive…Teams were drafting players not on the basis on whether or not they could play, but whether they could be signed. Whenever that happens then your sport is in trouble and that’s the way we were headed then.”
Of the merger, Pete Rozelle said that at the time he was “surprised that the AFL was interested or that even [we] were interested because [we] were such bitter enemies. The war was going on and we were raiding players. Obviously the terms and conditions turned out to be favorable, particularly to teams that had to take in competitors in New York and San Francisco. History shows it is a good move, a costly one but it gave the league greater strength.”
Without Hale Boggs and Russell Long, there would have been no NFL team in New Orleans and no Super Bowl. That’s why Cokie Roberts should be handed the Halas Trophy if the hometown Saints emerge victorious on Sunday afternoon.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)