Preakness and Belmont Stakes futures in doubt
FRIDAY, 14 MAY 2010 13:54
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/preakness-and-belmont-stakes-futures-in-doubt
Two thirds of horse racing's Triple Crown series in serious financial trouble
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
Gary Pretlow says there will be horse racing this fall at the Belmont Park. Wait one second, the home of one of thoroughbred racing crown jewels and Triple Crown event — the Belmont Stakes — may not have racing this fall? And who is Gary Pretlow that he is in the know?
The short answer is that it is quite possible that (the New York Racing Association, NYRA-run) Belmont's September 11-October 31, 2010 Fall Championship Meet is in jeopardy because of the meltdown of New York State politics in the both State Senate and Assembly and the leadership of Governor David Patterson. Not only is the Belmont Fall Championship Meet but the Saratoga Race Course July 23 through September 6 dates could also be in peril.
The Democrat Pretlow is the Chair of the New York State Assembly Racing and Wagering Committee. He has been in that post since 2005 and is in the middle of all the crises that are enveloping the thoroughbred horse industry in New York
There will be the running of the Belmont Stakes on June 5th. The Belmont is the oldest of the Triple Crown races and started in the Bronx in 1867. The race has been run on the Queens-Nassau County, New York race track since 1905 with the exception of two years, 1911 and 1912 when politics shut down the race. The New York State Legislature banned betting in those two years. Politics has a long history of involvement with racing in New York State. Neither New York Democrats nor New York Republicans have been able to solve thoroughbred racing's fiscal problems.
The basic problem of 2010 can be solved according to Pretlow if New York City's Off Track Betting cuts a $15 million check to the New York Racing Association but Pretlow said OTB chairman Sandy Frucher has refused to do so. The New York City OTB is bankrupt.
But that is not the long term solution for an industry that is reeling in New York. It is just a temporary fix.
Two of the three venues for thoroughbred racing's Triple Crown are in financial trouble. The Preakness at the Pimlico Race Course has been in business since 1873 but there have been suggestions since 2005 that the Preakness might be moved elsewhere because Maryland didn't have the money to keep racing in the state going.
At the end of April, the bankrupt Pimlico Race Course owner MI Developments reached an agreement with the state of Maryland that they will not move the horse race from Pimlico. The Kentucky Derby remains the gold standard for the thoroughbred industry but the glory days are long gone. The Triple Crown like the Indianapolis 500 is pure Americana from the days of Norman Rockwell paintings. Those events still resonant but is seems the events are more suited for the Smithsonian than modern day sporting events that catch the public's attention.
For the time being, the Preakness is going nowhere. But the thoroughbred and standard horse racing industry is in real financial trouble. In 1950, Americans favorite sports were baseball, boxing and horse racing. Six decades later, baseball is still extremely popular but it is no longer the lone "superstar" sport and trails football in popularity according to pollsters. Both boxing and horse racing have bottomed out.
Horse racing tracks were the only legal venue to bet outside of Nevada back in 1950. But horse racing within 15 years would come under assault as politicians attitudes toward gambling changed. Politicians decided to tap into a new revenue source, gambling, through a variety of lotteries. In New York, you can play Keno in pizza parlors and go to a local 7-11 and play about 20 different scratch off games or lotteries. Gambling is everywhere and it took a toll on the horse racing industry.
In the early 1970s, Yonkers Raceway would draw as many as 40,000 people on Saturday nights. Within two decades, a good many standardbred racetracks were ready to go out of business. Lawmakers in various states including New York approved a form of a one armed bandit, video lottery terminals (VLT) or video slot machines, and opened up gambling venues in failing standardbred tracks. Yonkers is now a casino which features standardbred racing. The horse racing industry and casino operators can be at odds in terms of promoting a "racino" and what is more important, horse racing or slot machines. But the casinos cannot open without the horses and the horse racing industry desperately need proceeds from a casino to keep their industry going in the United States.
In many corners of America, horse racing is a dead sport.
In 2001, the New York State Senate and Assembly passed legislation which was signed into law by Governor George Pataki that allowed the VLTs and that kept Yonkers Raceway, Monticello, Batavia Downs, Buffalo Raceway, Saratoga Gaming and Raceway, Tioga Downs and Vernon Downs in business along with the thoroughbred Fingers Lakes Race Track. But for some reason, State Senate Majority Leader Republican Joe Bruno said no to thoroughbred tracks in Saratoga and at Belmont and Aqueduct Race Tracks in Queens.
In 2007, Tim Rooney, who owns Yonkers Raceway, said without the "machines" as he called the VLT or slots, Yonkers Raceway would be a shopping mall.
Eventually, Aqueduct was allowed to install VLTs but the process of awarding a license to a company to build a Queens-based casino near John F. Kennedy International Airport has been bungled by Governor David Patterson. But Patterson is not the only New York Governor that is responsible for the dismal state of thoroughbred racing in New York. Pataki and Eliot Spitzer could not get a "racino" in Aqueduct.
Whether state sponsored gambling is ethical and causes more problem gambling is an argument for another column. The point is that politicians of both sides of the aisle, Democrat and Republican, liberal and conservative, are using gaming as a way to raise revenues. Government-sponsored gambling, whether it is video lottery terminals, slot machines, video table gaming or real table gaming is here and is not going away. Gambling revenues replace the need to tax. The Republican Pataki and the Democrats Spitzer and Patterson have dropped the ball when it comes to the thoroughbred industry which consists of jockeys, trainers, horse farms and ancillary businesses connected to thoroughbred racing.
Last winter, Paterson backed a deal that would have seen Aqueduct Entertainment Group run Aqueduct's racino. The state Division of Lottery refused to grant AEG a gaming license, saying it failed to provide some of the required background information. An industry insider called one of the main partners in AEG a "bottom feeder" with a history of problems. Patterson is hopeful that a gaming license will be issued to another group soon. Patterson though has weakened his credibility by giving the Aqueduct license to AEG, a group that was rejected by the state lottery.
There is a suggestion that New York State cannot help fix the thoroughbred industry's fiscal problems until 2011 when a new governor will be sworn in.
Patterson seems to be the lamest of lame ducks.
New York's thoroughbred industry is falling far behind states that have "racinos" which feature gambling and horse racing. Pretlow said that even though New York has fallen behind neighboring states like Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Connecticut in the gaming industry along with Delaware and West Virginia, he is convinced that getting the OTB payments to the New York Racing Association and slots in Aqueduct and possibly Belmont and Saratoga will make New York a horse racing destination again. Right now, the thoroughbred industry can get more money from race purses in other states and Philadelphia Park is becoming a better bet for horse owners on the east coast in terms of purses because of Parx Casino.
The TV glitz of the Triple Crown is just that glitz. The thoroughbred industry in the United States has some severe financial problems on a day-to-day basis. The tracks are empty, there is far too much betting competition starting at the local 7-11 and even in local pizza places. Jockeys used to be household names, Willie Shoemaker and Eddie Arcaro were major celebrities, even the track announcers were well known like the New York announcer Freddie Caposella who was lampooned in standup bits by comics. Horses like Secretariat, Seabiscuit, Man O' War and Citation were treated like celebrities as well. Secretariat was immortalized on a US postage stamp in 1999. But much of thoroughbred racing's glory came before 1950 when Americans listed baseball, boxing and horse racing at the top of their most popular sports lists.
The Triple Crown of Horse Racing is not the Triple Crown anymore.
Evan Weiner is an author, radio-TV commentator and lecturer on "The Politics of Sports Business" and can be reached for speaking engagements at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Friday, May 14, 2010
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Big Ten expansion to start game of musical chairs among big time college sports schools
Big Ten expansion to start game of musical chairs among big time college sports schools
WEDNESDAY, 12 MAY 2010 15:38
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/big-ten-expansion-to-start-game-of-musical-chairs-among-big-time-college-sports-schools
Rutgers in position to be big winner or loser
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
The future of the Big East Conference and Rutgers University's athletic program are going to become a major topic of conversation among the college sports industry and various cable TV networks in the next few weeks as the Big Ten Conference meets next week to consider future plans. Rutgers may or not be part of the Big Ten Conference's future.
There is one thing certain according to Duke men's basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski. There is change in the air and that might start with the Big Ten adding a school or a number of colleges to the present 11-team conference.
"The dust has not settled yet from expansion of a number of years ago (2003)," said the Duke coach. "Because, it wasn't as clean. There are teams left out, the Big East, you have 16 teams, eight of them are football schools, eight of them are not. It lends itself to other options and the Big Ten is the catalyst now. If they do something, a lot of dominos will fall."
The Big Ten needs a 12th team so they could have a conference championship game, which they could put out for bid before over-the-air and cable networks which will be in additional cash.
The Big Ten may have Rutgers and Pittsburgh on the radar screen or maybe not. The Big East is concerned that other conferences may come after some of the conference's teams, such as Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Syracuse or Connecticut and the conference hired former National Football League Commissioner Paul Tagliabue as a special advisor on "strategic planning" in an effort to keep the conference going. The Big East is not the only one that has added an "advisor." The Pac 10 has a new Commissioner, Larry Scott and has gone Hollywood as it has hired Creative Artists Agency to see what they can do about forming a network to enhance TV coverage by 2012.
The Big East is a basketball conference, not a football alliance and it is football, not basketball, that drives college revenues.
Krzyzewski knows that and so does Geno Auriemma, the coach of the University of Connecticut's women's basketball squad.
"I keep hearing different reports of which schools are going to be approached," said Auriemma. "You don't know which to believe and which not to believe. The one thing you can be sure of, something is going to happen. The Big East as we know it today will probably won't exist in the future. For me, ideally it would be great if we can keep the league the way it is because it has been successful and we have proven it can be successful. Who are the teams that are going to leave and what impact they are going to have, I think everybody is waiting to see.
"The dilemma that colleges have right now, if you are one of those teams that is approached by another league, whether it is the Big Ten or anybody else, do you turn your back on existing rivalries and loyalties and just go? Financially they have made it that yes, that is exactly what teams are going to do. If you are one of the teams that is not asked, do you sit around and wait for someone to leave and you pick up the pieces or do you now start to become pro-active and you are looking for someplace to go. I think whether you are asked or not asked, everybody is moving in some direction."
In 2003, the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) invited three Big East schools, Boston College, the University of Miami and Virginia Tech to join that collection of
schools which forced the Big East into realigning. The Big East has some schools that are attractive to other suitors. Pittsburgh, Syracuse and Rutgers have football and basketball programs. The ACC took three football schools in 2003.
Rutgers, in theory, would be a good fit for a Big Ten expansion because of geography in that the Big Ten Network, a cable TV partnership between the 11 universities in the conference and FOX Cable Networks. That network has 45 million subscribers and contributes to each school getting an annual check for $22 million from TV revenues. The Big Ten could increase the cable TV footprint by adding Rutgers which, is in Comcast, Cablevision and Time Warner territory. An increase in a cable TV footprint means more cable TV revenues from subscribers. Comcast can put the Big Ten Network on any of the company's systems outside of the Big Ten and carries the network on systems with the Big Ten territory so New Jersey would get the network if Rutgers joins the conference.
But adding Rutgers does not necessarily mean that the Big Ten will "get" all of the New York market as neither Charles Dolan's Cablevision nor Time Warner, the other big New York area MSOs are locks to take the channel. Rutgers also has a problem in terms of the size of the stadium. As one time NCAA President, the late Myles Brand pointed out; you need between 80 and 90 thousand seats in a football stadium to really make money.
The Big Ten has to look at both sides of the coin in terms of adding Rutgers. The Big Ten has had Rutgers on a list of schools that make sense for conference expansion. But conference expansion is really not all that complicated according to Auriemma.
"This is all going to come down to college president's deciding this is what is best for our university from an academic standpoint and certainly financially, none of these moves would be happening if it was not financially rewarding."
No one is talking about Connecticut moving out of the Big East, not yet anyway. But Connecticut has a 40,000 seat football stadium, two top notch basketball programs and also claims part of the New York City market in terms of a following. If Maryland jumped from the ACC to the Big Ten, Connecticut might be a good fit in the ACC.
It is the new domino theory.
"Georgetown, St. John's, Syracuse back in the day (1979) were the reasons why the Big East became the Big East in basketball," said Auriemma. "Well if you look at the Big East now, Connecticut is one reason the Big East is the Big East. Are we going to stay and become the linchpin of that league or someone thinks we are attractive enough now that we bring a lot to the table.
"I don't know of any school in our league or in a lot of leagues that brings more to the table academically and program wise up and down the entire sports spectrum."
Auriemma did say he has no idea how others view Connecticut.
Is conference expansion good?
For TV money yes, but schools lose local rivals and in Connecticut's case there are now long trips to the south to play in Florida or in the Midwest instead of the I-95 corridor. But the money is too good to pass up.
"From a cable standpoint, if you got your own network like the Big Ten does, sure you want to expand that network all over the country. Absolutely," said Auriemma. "But in terms of bringing a market (into a conference) when you don't have your own TV network, it doesn't do anything for you.
"Unless a league, and the Big Ten is way ahead of everybody in this regard, has their own TV network and is able to expand that and is looking for acquisitions that is going to give them that coverage all over the country, just to get in a league because ESPN, CBS or somebody may do this, that or the other thing. That has proven that doesn't work. I live in New England and I don't know everybody in the Boston area who says, hey BC is playing Clemson tonight, I got to get a ticket for that.
"These decisions are going to be made for financial reasons that are going to be impacting these schools 20 years from now, 25-years from now. Creating these super conferences probably and I would bet you that everybody involves with these sees a scenario where they are going to be like what the BCS has done in football."
It is all in the pursuit of money. The money has changed college sports.
"If the Big East is giving Connecticut $7 million and our budget is $50-55 million, whatever it is, and somebody is offering us $22 (million), now you say wow, we can compete now. What I would imagine in these discussions, people are saying, okay well your budget is $100 million, and so is mine and so is his and so is his, so we are all thinking the same thing, we are all going after the same thing so let's all form our own little club and let's compete against each other. If you are one of those other guys you are out.
"Is that fair? No, it is not fair but that is where the world is right now and these people are taking advantage of an opportunity. They saw the model, you have this sized stadium, you produce the revenue and you can join our club, if you don't you are out."
And that leads to a question, has the big time college sports industry gotten out of hand?
"I don't know if it has gotten out of hand as much as it is still in the process of change," said Krzyzewski. "Things change but when our sports is such that if one conference changes, it is going to have a rippling effect. If the Big Ten changes, it is going to change or could change four other conferences or more and I am not sure that is all bad. Change isn't bad. You are constantly looking for ways of improving and if the resources that are needed to fund all the programs each school has, it is not just basketball or football, you have to produce a certain amount of money to do that and if these changes produce that while still giving a quality experience for a student athlete, then I am all for it."
The times, they are a-changing in big time college sports. What makes a school attractive? That is what the solons of the Big Ten will deliberate upon next week. Is Rutgers attractive? Or does Pittsburgh, Missouri, Nebraska and Notre Dame work out better individually or collectively for the Big Ten? If Rutgers is "the other guy" as Auriemma referred to those not asked to join a conference, and if the Big East falls apart what happens?
That is a good question. Rutgers might end up in the ACC or the South East Conference. The game of musical chairs for money is about to begin.
Evan Weiner is an author, radio-TV commentator, and lecturer on "The Politics and Business of Sports." He is available for speaking at evanjweiner@yahoo.com .
WEDNESDAY, 12 MAY 2010 15:38
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/big-ten-expansion-to-start-game-of-musical-chairs-among-big-time-college-sports-schools
Rutgers in position to be big winner or loser
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
The future of the Big East Conference and Rutgers University's athletic program are going to become a major topic of conversation among the college sports industry and various cable TV networks in the next few weeks as the Big Ten Conference meets next week to consider future plans. Rutgers may or not be part of the Big Ten Conference's future.
There is one thing certain according to Duke men's basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski. There is change in the air and that might start with the Big Ten adding a school or a number of colleges to the present 11-team conference.
"The dust has not settled yet from expansion of a number of years ago (2003)," said the Duke coach. "Because, it wasn't as clean. There are teams left out, the Big East, you have 16 teams, eight of them are football schools, eight of them are not. It lends itself to other options and the Big Ten is the catalyst now. If they do something, a lot of dominos will fall."
The Big Ten needs a 12th team so they could have a conference championship game, which they could put out for bid before over-the-air and cable networks which will be in additional cash.
The Big Ten may have Rutgers and Pittsburgh on the radar screen or maybe not. The Big East is concerned that other conferences may come after some of the conference's teams, such as Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Syracuse or Connecticut and the conference hired former National Football League Commissioner Paul Tagliabue as a special advisor on "strategic planning" in an effort to keep the conference going. The Big East is not the only one that has added an "advisor." The Pac 10 has a new Commissioner, Larry Scott and has gone Hollywood as it has hired Creative Artists Agency to see what they can do about forming a network to enhance TV coverage by 2012.
The Big East is a basketball conference, not a football alliance and it is football, not basketball, that drives college revenues.
Krzyzewski knows that and so does Geno Auriemma, the coach of the University of Connecticut's women's basketball squad.
"I keep hearing different reports of which schools are going to be approached," said Auriemma. "You don't know which to believe and which not to believe. The one thing you can be sure of, something is going to happen. The Big East as we know it today will probably won't exist in the future. For me, ideally it would be great if we can keep the league the way it is because it has been successful and we have proven it can be successful. Who are the teams that are going to leave and what impact they are going to have, I think everybody is waiting to see.
"The dilemma that colleges have right now, if you are one of those teams that is approached by another league, whether it is the Big Ten or anybody else, do you turn your back on existing rivalries and loyalties and just go? Financially they have made it that yes, that is exactly what teams are going to do. If you are one of the teams that is not asked, do you sit around and wait for someone to leave and you pick up the pieces or do you now start to become pro-active and you are looking for someplace to go. I think whether you are asked or not asked, everybody is moving in some direction."
In 2003, the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) invited three Big East schools, Boston College, the University of Miami and Virginia Tech to join that collection of
schools which forced the Big East into realigning. The Big East has some schools that are attractive to other suitors. Pittsburgh, Syracuse and Rutgers have football and basketball programs. The ACC took three football schools in 2003.
Rutgers, in theory, would be a good fit for a Big Ten expansion because of geography in that the Big Ten Network, a cable TV partnership between the 11 universities in the conference and FOX Cable Networks. That network has 45 million subscribers and contributes to each school getting an annual check for $22 million from TV revenues. The Big Ten could increase the cable TV footprint by adding Rutgers which, is in Comcast, Cablevision and Time Warner territory. An increase in a cable TV footprint means more cable TV revenues from subscribers. Comcast can put the Big Ten Network on any of the company's systems outside of the Big Ten and carries the network on systems with the Big Ten territory so New Jersey would get the network if Rutgers joins the conference.
But adding Rutgers does not necessarily mean that the Big Ten will "get" all of the New York market as neither Charles Dolan's Cablevision nor Time Warner, the other big New York area MSOs are locks to take the channel. Rutgers also has a problem in terms of the size of the stadium. As one time NCAA President, the late Myles Brand pointed out; you need between 80 and 90 thousand seats in a football stadium to really make money.
The Big Ten has to look at both sides of the coin in terms of adding Rutgers. The Big Ten has had Rutgers on a list of schools that make sense for conference expansion. But conference expansion is really not all that complicated according to Auriemma.
"This is all going to come down to college president's deciding this is what is best for our university from an academic standpoint and certainly financially, none of these moves would be happening if it was not financially rewarding."
No one is talking about Connecticut moving out of the Big East, not yet anyway. But Connecticut has a 40,000 seat football stadium, two top notch basketball programs and also claims part of the New York City market in terms of a following. If Maryland jumped from the ACC to the Big Ten, Connecticut might be a good fit in the ACC.
It is the new domino theory.
"Georgetown, St. John's, Syracuse back in the day (1979) were the reasons why the Big East became the Big East in basketball," said Auriemma. "Well if you look at the Big East now, Connecticut is one reason the Big East is the Big East. Are we going to stay and become the linchpin of that league or someone thinks we are attractive enough now that we bring a lot to the table.
"I don't know of any school in our league or in a lot of leagues that brings more to the table academically and program wise up and down the entire sports spectrum."
Auriemma did say he has no idea how others view Connecticut.
Is conference expansion good?
For TV money yes, but schools lose local rivals and in Connecticut's case there are now long trips to the south to play in Florida or in the Midwest instead of the I-95 corridor. But the money is too good to pass up.
"From a cable standpoint, if you got your own network like the Big Ten does, sure you want to expand that network all over the country. Absolutely," said Auriemma. "But in terms of bringing a market (into a conference) when you don't have your own TV network, it doesn't do anything for you.
"Unless a league, and the Big Ten is way ahead of everybody in this regard, has their own TV network and is able to expand that and is looking for acquisitions that is going to give them that coverage all over the country, just to get in a league because ESPN, CBS or somebody may do this, that or the other thing. That has proven that doesn't work. I live in New England and I don't know everybody in the Boston area who says, hey BC is playing Clemson tonight, I got to get a ticket for that.
"These decisions are going to be made for financial reasons that are going to be impacting these schools 20 years from now, 25-years from now. Creating these super conferences probably and I would bet you that everybody involves with these sees a scenario where they are going to be like what the BCS has done in football."
It is all in the pursuit of money. The money has changed college sports.
"If the Big East is giving Connecticut $7 million and our budget is $50-55 million, whatever it is, and somebody is offering us $22 (million), now you say wow, we can compete now. What I would imagine in these discussions, people are saying, okay well your budget is $100 million, and so is mine and so is his and so is his, so we are all thinking the same thing, we are all going after the same thing so let's all form our own little club and let's compete against each other. If you are one of those other guys you are out.
"Is that fair? No, it is not fair but that is where the world is right now and these people are taking advantage of an opportunity. They saw the model, you have this sized stadium, you produce the revenue and you can join our club, if you don't you are out."
And that leads to a question, has the big time college sports industry gotten out of hand?
"I don't know if it has gotten out of hand as much as it is still in the process of change," said Krzyzewski. "Things change but when our sports is such that if one conference changes, it is going to have a rippling effect. If the Big Ten changes, it is going to change or could change four other conferences or more and I am not sure that is all bad. Change isn't bad. You are constantly looking for ways of improving and if the resources that are needed to fund all the programs each school has, it is not just basketball or football, you have to produce a certain amount of money to do that and if these changes produce that while still giving a quality experience for a student athlete, then I am all for it."
The times, they are a-changing in big time college sports. What makes a school attractive? That is what the solons of the Big Ten will deliberate upon next week. Is Rutgers attractive? Or does Pittsburgh, Missouri, Nebraska and Notre Dame work out better individually or collectively for the Big Ten? If Rutgers is "the other guy" as Auriemma referred to those not asked to join a conference, and if the Big East falls apart what happens?
That is a good question. Rutgers might end up in the ACC or the South East Conference. The game of musical chairs for money is about to begin.
Evan Weiner is an author, radio-TV commentator, and lecturer on "The Politics and Business of Sports." He is available for speaking at evanjweiner@yahoo.com .
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
NFL preparing for ‘Replacements II’ sequel with possibility of 2011 lockout
NFL preparing for ‘Replacements II’ sequel with possibility of 2011 lockout
TUESDAY, 11 MAY 2010 13:04
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/nfl-preparing-for-replacements-ii-sequel-with-possibility-of-2011-lockout
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
There are stories that are beginning to surface that National Football League owners will sign United Football League, Canadian Football League, indoor football league and any other players that might be available in the event the owners and players cannot reach a new collective bargaining agreement sometime in the next year. The present deal between the owners and players ends after the 2011 Super Bowl.
The stories include details such as the National Football League buying a 25 percent share of the one-year-old United Football League, a five team entity with teams in Hartford, Las Vegas, Omaha, Orlando and Sacramento, and using some of those players.
If these stories are true, the NFL in 2011 will be revisiting an old plan that was used in 1987.
Replacement players.
How the paying customers who own Personal Seat Licenses and paying big money for games will react is unknown at this point but in 1987 neither New York Giants coach Bill Parcells nor Philadelphia Eagles coach Buddy Ryan was too thrilled with the idea. But the Giants and Eagles NFC East rivals, the Dallas Cowboys and the Washington Redskins embraced the idea. A little history is needed to understand why NFL owners endorsed the idea which was the brainchild of then Dallas Cowboys President Texas E. (Tex) Schramm and may revisit the idea in 2011.
The NFL owners and players had a contentious relationship for decades. The NFLPA formed in 1956 with help from Creighton Miller, the first General Manager of the Cleveland Browns. Unhappy players in Cleveland and Green Bay assembled a network of "player reps" on each team. The players included Don Shula (Colts), Frank Gifford (Giants), and Norm Van Brocklin (Rams) to represent their teams. The Chicago Bears did not have a players representative. The players first meeting was held in New York in the fall of 1956, after the owners ignored the players' attempts to discuss their requests. The players asked for minimum salaries of $5,000 per season, injury pay, uniform per diems, and for teams to supply their own equipment.
Nothing happened but the players got a big break in 1957 when, the first lawsuit involving professional football and antitrust was filed, Radovich v. NFL, which significantly altered player rights within the league. The case involved a player/coach, George Radovich, who sued the league because the NFL effectively prevented him from attaining employment in the NFL or affiliated leagues, such as the Pacific Coast League, which was in existence at the time. The case was dismissed on the grounds that the NFL was exempted from the antitrust laws, and was appealed to the Supreme Court, which reversed the decision of the trial court, holding professional football subject to the antitrust laws.
The Supreme Court decision changed life for NFL owners. The players could now sue the league on antitrust grounds which they threatened to do. The owners and players settled with the players receiving minimum salaries of $5,000, $50 payment for preseason games, medical coverage for injuries, and a pension.
But the players didn't get what they agreed to and spend the 1958 season chasing the owners to live up to the agreement. The deal was finally signed in 1959.
The players did catch another break when Lamar Hunt started the American Football league and for some college players, they were able to play the NFL off against the AFL in getting some leverage for their initial contract. The AFL-NFL war over established players began in earnest when Pete Gogolak, a kicker on the Buffalo Bills signed a deal with the New York Giants in 1966. What was good for Gogolak and two NFL quarterbacks John Brodie and Roman Gabriel along with Mike Ditka who were been pursued by AFL Commissioner Al Davis to sign with his league was not good for the owners of either league. Brodie, Gabriel and Ditka got raises from their NFL teams. The AFL and NFL announced their intent to merge on June 8, 1966.
The National Football League Players Association wanted to fight the merger but didn't have the funding to do so.
The NFLPA has always been weak and the owners knew that. The two leagues may have merged, but the player associations did not, as the players on the 16 NFL teams were NFLPA members and the players on the 10 AFL teams were American Football League Players Association members. This caused a major problem in subsequent negotiations as the NFLPA would come to a tentative agreement with the owners on certain collective bargaining issues (such as minimum salaries, retirement age) then the owners would bargain with the AFLPA, who accepted lower terms, which wasn't good for NFLPA members.
There was a brief lockout and a 20-day strike in 1970 that ended just before the 1970 All Star game and which did not result in the cancellation of regular or post-season games, the NFL and NFLPA signed a four-year contract, the first collective bargaining agreement in the history of the NFL, which raised player salary minimums to $12,500 for rookies and $13,000 for veterans, added dental insurance, improved the pension, gave players the right to have agents, gave players representation on the Retirement Board, and provided for impartial arbitration of injury grievances.
(Retired players from that era are still battling the NFL over injury grievances and those grievances have caught the attention of Congress)
In 1974, the previous CBA was coming to an end. Players were demanding the elimination of the Rozelle Rule and the option clause which kept a player tied to his team in perpetuity unless another team was willing to give up number one draft picks or players to sign a free agent among other things. On July 1, the players went on strike, and were prepared to sit out until a new bargaining agreement was hammered out. The sit-out led to the cancellation of the New York Jets game at New Haven, the first game ever cancelled due to a labor impasse. However, by the early part of August, about a quarter of the NFLPA crossed the picket lines, breaking down union solidarity. On August 11, Garvey sent his players back to work after a federal mediator suggested a 14-day cooling off period, instead pursuing the issue through the Mackey case. The 42-day strike ended that day with nothing gained.
On September 21, 1982, NFL players went on strike. It was the longest strike in professional sports in the U.S. at the time and lasted until November 17. The owners responded by locking the players out at the commencement of the strike. During the strike, only 126 of the 224 scheduled regular-season games were played, forcing the league to change the format of post-season play to include 16 teams instead of the usual 10 teams. The players held two "All-Star" games to raise some funding for players without a paycheck. The players got more money but two goals were not met, a form of free agency and more pension money.
The owners were not going to let that happen in 1987.
The players decided to strike after the second week of the season and the NFL reverted to its 1974 tactic of bringing in rookies and free agents and play replacement games. The league cancelled the third week's schedule and resumed with the week four matchups.
In 2000, Hollywood made a movie about the 1987 strike called "Replacements" which was based on the Washington Redskins.
Some teams scouted the best available talent and tried to put together a strong replacement team. Other teams took chunks of local semipro teams, like the New York Giants, and hoped for the best. Others like Philadelphia Eagles Coach Buddy Ryan didn't take the replacement games too seriously and wanted for the players to return.
Like in 1974, veterans crossed the picket lines and by October 25, the NFL was able to claim victory. The players reverted to their old standby; plan B that was court action and that set off years of litigation.
"It was a great time and a lot of fun," said Charley Casserly who was part of the Redskins front office at that time. "Really, the interesting thing was we put together a time, the whole organization and Joe Gibbs did a great job coaching them. Nobody crossed the picket line and we beat two teams, St. Louis and Dallas on that climatic Monday Night that had about 10-12 players cross the picket line. The Dallas team had (Tony) Dorsett, Randy White, Danny White, Too Tall Jones. It was quite a time."
The NFL teams who did compete for players for Schramm's replacement league look anyway for players. Casserley found four players in a Richmond, Virginia halfway house who were playing for a minor league team including Tony Robinson who was the quarterback of the replacement team that beat Dallas.
"We did have a little philosophy on it," Casserly continued. "We wanted players that knew the system. We had to put together a team in 10 days to go play a game. Football unlike all other sports is really a team sport. So we wanted guys who knew the Joe Gibbs system. So we started with players who had been in our camp that year and been in our camp the year before and had been in camps with the Gibbs/(Don) Coryell system. We got players from everywhere.
"Obviously NFL cuts, but we got players from Canada, players who were cut in Canada. We wanted players in camp who were healthy and ready to go."
The players crumbled quickly in 1987 but years later Dave Jennings, who was a New York Jets punter at the time, thinks the showdown with the owners was worth it.
"The players were not that interested in a long term strike, they were looking at the next paycheck," said Jennings. "It's tough to get players to strike and stay together. In 1987, it was a shorter strike and we had the court cases working and eventually it worked out for us.
"We got nothing from the 1987 strike, we didn't get anything directly, but indirectly we got free agency and you see what happened. Free agency works."
It took six years until the players and owners came up with a new Collective Bargaining Agreement and that under pressure from a federal court judge in Minneapolis. The players and owners have spent 17 years under that system. The owners want to chance the revenue stream that is going into players' wallets and maybe break the association in the process. It has worked before with the players caving but in the end, the owners have lost antitrust cases.
It is not surprising stories are surfacing that the NFL owners are planning a sequel to the 2000 movie, "Replacements"
Evan Weiner is an author, radio-TV commentator and lecturer on the Politics of Sports Business and can be reached for speaking engagements at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
TUESDAY, 11 MAY 2010 13:04
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/nfl-preparing-for-replacements-ii-sequel-with-possibility-of-2011-lockout
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
There are stories that are beginning to surface that National Football League owners will sign United Football League, Canadian Football League, indoor football league and any other players that might be available in the event the owners and players cannot reach a new collective bargaining agreement sometime in the next year. The present deal between the owners and players ends after the 2011 Super Bowl.
The stories include details such as the National Football League buying a 25 percent share of the one-year-old United Football League, a five team entity with teams in Hartford, Las Vegas, Omaha, Orlando and Sacramento, and using some of those players.
If these stories are true, the NFL in 2011 will be revisiting an old plan that was used in 1987.
Replacement players.
How the paying customers who own Personal Seat Licenses and paying big money for games will react is unknown at this point but in 1987 neither New York Giants coach Bill Parcells nor Philadelphia Eagles coach Buddy Ryan was too thrilled with the idea. But the Giants and Eagles NFC East rivals, the Dallas Cowboys and the Washington Redskins embraced the idea. A little history is needed to understand why NFL owners endorsed the idea which was the brainchild of then Dallas Cowboys President Texas E. (Tex) Schramm and may revisit the idea in 2011.
The NFL owners and players had a contentious relationship for decades. The NFLPA formed in 1956 with help from Creighton Miller, the first General Manager of the Cleveland Browns. Unhappy players in Cleveland and Green Bay assembled a network of "player reps" on each team. The players included Don Shula (Colts), Frank Gifford (Giants), and Norm Van Brocklin (Rams) to represent their teams. The Chicago Bears did not have a players representative. The players first meeting was held in New York in the fall of 1956, after the owners ignored the players' attempts to discuss their requests. The players asked for minimum salaries of $5,000 per season, injury pay, uniform per diems, and for teams to supply their own equipment.
Nothing happened but the players got a big break in 1957 when, the first lawsuit involving professional football and antitrust was filed, Radovich v. NFL, which significantly altered player rights within the league. The case involved a player/coach, George Radovich, who sued the league because the NFL effectively prevented him from attaining employment in the NFL or affiliated leagues, such as the Pacific Coast League, which was in existence at the time. The case was dismissed on the grounds that the NFL was exempted from the antitrust laws, and was appealed to the Supreme Court, which reversed the decision of the trial court, holding professional football subject to the antitrust laws.
The Supreme Court decision changed life for NFL owners. The players could now sue the league on antitrust grounds which they threatened to do. The owners and players settled with the players receiving minimum salaries of $5,000, $50 payment for preseason games, medical coverage for injuries, and a pension.
But the players didn't get what they agreed to and spend the 1958 season chasing the owners to live up to the agreement. The deal was finally signed in 1959.
The players did catch another break when Lamar Hunt started the American Football league and for some college players, they were able to play the NFL off against the AFL in getting some leverage for their initial contract. The AFL-NFL war over established players began in earnest when Pete Gogolak, a kicker on the Buffalo Bills signed a deal with the New York Giants in 1966. What was good for Gogolak and two NFL quarterbacks John Brodie and Roman Gabriel along with Mike Ditka who were been pursued by AFL Commissioner Al Davis to sign with his league was not good for the owners of either league. Brodie, Gabriel and Ditka got raises from their NFL teams. The AFL and NFL announced their intent to merge on June 8, 1966.
The National Football League Players Association wanted to fight the merger but didn't have the funding to do so.
The NFLPA has always been weak and the owners knew that. The two leagues may have merged, but the player associations did not, as the players on the 16 NFL teams were NFLPA members and the players on the 10 AFL teams were American Football League Players Association members. This caused a major problem in subsequent negotiations as the NFLPA would come to a tentative agreement with the owners on certain collective bargaining issues (such as minimum salaries, retirement age) then the owners would bargain with the AFLPA, who accepted lower terms, which wasn't good for NFLPA members.
There was a brief lockout and a 20-day strike in 1970 that ended just before the 1970 All Star game and which did not result in the cancellation of regular or post-season games, the NFL and NFLPA signed a four-year contract, the first collective bargaining agreement in the history of the NFL, which raised player salary minimums to $12,500 for rookies and $13,000 for veterans, added dental insurance, improved the pension, gave players the right to have agents, gave players representation on the Retirement Board, and provided for impartial arbitration of injury grievances.
(Retired players from that era are still battling the NFL over injury grievances and those grievances have caught the attention of Congress)
In 1974, the previous CBA was coming to an end. Players were demanding the elimination of the Rozelle Rule and the option clause which kept a player tied to his team in perpetuity unless another team was willing to give up number one draft picks or players to sign a free agent among other things. On July 1, the players went on strike, and were prepared to sit out until a new bargaining agreement was hammered out. The sit-out led to the cancellation of the New York Jets game at New Haven, the first game ever cancelled due to a labor impasse. However, by the early part of August, about a quarter of the NFLPA crossed the picket lines, breaking down union solidarity. On August 11, Garvey sent his players back to work after a federal mediator suggested a 14-day cooling off period, instead pursuing the issue through the Mackey case. The 42-day strike ended that day with nothing gained.
On September 21, 1982, NFL players went on strike. It was the longest strike in professional sports in the U.S. at the time and lasted until November 17. The owners responded by locking the players out at the commencement of the strike. During the strike, only 126 of the 224 scheduled regular-season games were played, forcing the league to change the format of post-season play to include 16 teams instead of the usual 10 teams. The players held two "All-Star" games to raise some funding for players without a paycheck. The players got more money but two goals were not met, a form of free agency and more pension money.
The owners were not going to let that happen in 1987.
The players decided to strike after the second week of the season and the NFL reverted to its 1974 tactic of bringing in rookies and free agents and play replacement games. The league cancelled the third week's schedule and resumed with the week four matchups.
In 2000, Hollywood made a movie about the 1987 strike called "Replacements" which was based on the Washington Redskins.
Some teams scouted the best available talent and tried to put together a strong replacement team. Other teams took chunks of local semipro teams, like the New York Giants, and hoped for the best. Others like Philadelphia Eagles Coach Buddy Ryan didn't take the replacement games too seriously and wanted for the players to return.
Like in 1974, veterans crossed the picket lines and by October 25, the NFL was able to claim victory. The players reverted to their old standby; plan B that was court action and that set off years of litigation.
"It was a great time and a lot of fun," said Charley Casserly who was part of the Redskins front office at that time. "Really, the interesting thing was we put together a time, the whole organization and Joe Gibbs did a great job coaching them. Nobody crossed the picket line and we beat two teams, St. Louis and Dallas on that climatic Monday Night that had about 10-12 players cross the picket line. The Dallas team had (Tony) Dorsett, Randy White, Danny White, Too Tall Jones. It was quite a time."
The NFL teams who did compete for players for Schramm's replacement league look anyway for players. Casserley found four players in a Richmond, Virginia halfway house who were playing for a minor league team including Tony Robinson who was the quarterback of the replacement team that beat Dallas.
"We did have a little philosophy on it," Casserly continued. "We wanted players that knew the system. We had to put together a team in 10 days to go play a game. Football unlike all other sports is really a team sport. So we wanted guys who knew the Joe Gibbs system. So we started with players who had been in our camp that year and been in our camp the year before and had been in camps with the Gibbs/(Don) Coryell system. We got players from everywhere.
"Obviously NFL cuts, but we got players from Canada, players who were cut in Canada. We wanted players in camp who were healthy and ready to go."
The players crumbled quickly in 1987 but years later Dave Jennings, who was a New York Jets punter at the time, thinks the showdown with the owners was worth it.
"The players were not that interested in a long term strike, they were looking at the next paycheck," said Jennings. "It's tough to get players to strike and stay together. In 1987, it was a shorter strike and we had the court cases working and eventually it worked out for us.
"We got nothing from the 1987 strike, we didn't get anything directly, but indirectly we got free agency and you see what happened. Free agency works."
It took six years until the players and owners came up with a new Collective Bargaining Agreement and that under pressure from a federal court judge in Minneapolis. The players and owners have spent 17 years under that system. The owners want to chance the revenue stream that is going into players' wallets and maybe break the association in the process. It has worked before with the players caving but in the end, the owners have lost antitrust cases.
It is not surprising stories are surfacing that the NFL owners are planning a sequel to the 2000 movie, "Replacements"
Evan Weiner is an author, radio-TV commentator and lecturer on the Politics of Sports Business and can be reached for speaking engagements at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Saturday, May 8, 2010
A New York Tabloid’s Seduction of Lebron James
A New York Tabloid’s Seduction of Lebron James
By Evan Weiner
May 7, 2010
(New York, N. Y.) -- United States security officials are still investigating the Times Square bombing attempt, Greece is falling off the economic cliff, there is a flood cleanup in the heart of Nashville, the BP oil spill has not been capped in the Gulf of Mexico, the stock market blew a fuse on Thursday, a volcano in Iceland is still throwing ash into the sky and causing some airplane disruptions in Europe, the United Kingdom had an election and Roland Martin wore an ascot on CNN which became a running joke on The Daily Show for two days yet the New York Daily News, Mort Zuckerman's New York Daily News had an open letter to Lebron James on the front page of May 8's edition, please come to New York and sign with the Knicks after James becomes a free agent on July 1. Zuckerman's headline writer had a plea to Lebron.
This Is Home.
Actually Akron, Ohio is home for Lebron.
On pages 8 and 9 of the tabloid, there were articles and then a comparison between New York and Cleveland and why New York is better. This is not an unusual Daily News tactic. When the Knicks played Indiana in the playoffs in the 1990s, the tabloid poked fun at Indianapolis and Indiana using the headline "The Knicks Versus the Hicks".
Disrespectful yes, but tabloids have no time for hurt feelings. Especially New York tabloids in the midst of in what seems to be the Hundred Years' (tabloid) War.
The "This is Home" complete with pictures of the Statue of Liberty and Lebron front page (Emma Lazarus probably wasn't thinking of Lebron when she wrote give me your tired and poor line as part of her sonnet, The New Colossus which is immortalized on a plaque at the Statue of Liberty) was just the latest New York media's love note to Lebron, the wooing of Lebron in the New York papers is akin to the Knicks trying to recruit Lebron and it appears Knicks owner James Dolan has no problem with the New York tabloids gushing over Lebron who is a free agent come July 1. Dolan who himself owns a newspaper -- Newsday -- has been quiet on the subject, he could be accused of tampering with a player under contract to another team and Newsday has not been out in front of showing love and affection for the Cleveland Cavaliers player.
Zuckerman, whose paper (along with Rupert Murdoch's New York Post, the New York Times and Newsday) put up money for the establishment of the NYC2012 Olympic Committee and himself a part owner of the Washington Redskins, cannot be serious or can he? The Daily News is in a struggle with the New York Post for tabloid domination in the New York market, neither paper puts out much of a useable product as both are filled with mayhem, murder, entertainment and sports news with a lot of sensationalism and on top of that ESPN's new New York website poached Zuckerman's product and took a number of sportswriters.
The Daily News needs readership and if Lebron and the Statue of Liberty and "This is Home" sells papers, that is fine.
The Lebron on the Saturday cover and two-page in the non-sports section articles along with a blow up of Lebron in a Knicks uniform is a thoroughly unprofessional of a journalistic endeavor however and sophomoric at best. The paper seems to be on collectively hands and knees in begging mode, please Lebron look at me status. The only thing missing was Zuckerman's star writer, Mike Lupica (who in the 1990s was Garden President Dave Checketts stenographer and MSG's chief welcome wagon host in his love letters in the sand to MSG columns and Lupica is still pining for those days when the Knicks and Rangers mattered and the Garden was either the hippest or coolest spot on Earth---perhaps he can again hire people like he did back in the 1990s to tell him how the Rangers played and write coherent columns about hockey as well) did not write the valentines to Lebron pieces but that will soon be coming from the Daily News superstar political and sports columnist as the days dwindle down to July 1.
(Love Letters in the Sand was written by J. Fred Coots. Coots also wrote Santa Claus is Coming to Town and the Rangers Victory Song – the New York Rangers fight song back in the 1930s and 40s and beyond.)
The New York tabloid papers basketball coverage have been nothing more than let’s hope Lebron falls in love with New York cheerleaders and the papers are perhaps one step ahead of the New York sports talk radio shows in their infatuation. The hosts of those radio shows also pine for Lebron's love for New York.
Zuckerman, who has the very serious magazine, US News and World Report, has not mentioned in any of his coverage that Lebron's maximum annual NBA contract would allow him to make about $14 million a year is about the same amount of money that Madison Square Garden would pay in property taxes except Dolan doesn't have to pay property taxes. Dolan doesn't pay because in the early 1980s, Gulf and Western, then Garden owners, somehow convinced Mayor Ed Koch, the New York State Legislature and New York Governor Mario Cuomo that the NBA's Knicks and the NHL's Rangers could not be financially viable and could not compete with small market teams for talent without a reduction in property taxes and help with the Con Ed electric bill.
The Knicks and Rangers stayed in a valuable parcel of real estate not far from Macy's or Times Square, Gulf and Western got the property off the city's books and Con Ed customers paid for the privilege of having the two teams stay in Manhattan by picking up the Garden's electric tab. The New York State-Garden deal seems to be one of those that will last in perpetuity or eternity.
Zuckerman seems to be trying to play the Jack Murphy role in getting two big league sports franchise in San Diego in 1961 and 1969 in the pursuit of Lebron James. There is no secret that newspapers like to shape public opinion and make endorsements for political candidates and public policy. But a newspapers main goal is not reporting news per se. The news is the lure or the bait for people to look at the newspaper and check out the advertisements. It is the ad money that newspapers have lived and died with. Ad money has been evaporating for newspapers over the past decade and the product has suffered as writers have been let go.
The Lebron on the front cover is a ploy to get people to sample the Daily News. Zuckerman is not Jack Murphy though. Jack Murphy is a forgotten figure in sports and probably belongs in the Pro Football Hall of Fame and the Baseball Hall of Fame as a contributor. Murphy was a columnist and the sports editor of the San Diego Union in the 1950s. San Diego was a quiet, navy town in the 1950s but Murphy reached out to the owner of the American Football League's Los Angeles Chargers, Barron Hilton (the grandfather of Paris Hilton) and began a city pursuit of Hilton's football team. Murphy did convince Hilton that San Diego was a much better venue for his fan-challenged Los Angeles Chargers but there was a potential short term and long term problem.
San Diego lacked a suitable professional football stadium. With Hilton's team ready to move southward but not having a home, Murphy began writing that the Chargers needed a real stadium not the patchwork Balboa Stadium (some renovations at the facility to make it an acceptable AFL stadium were done by Chargers players including Jack Kemp and Paul Maguire) which sat 34,000 people. Murphy pushed to get public support in a referendum to build a real stadium and voters responded by passing the $27 million stadium ballot in November 1965. The new stadium opened in 1967 with the Chargers football team as the main tenant. After Murphy passed away in 1980, San Diego Stadium became Jack Murphy Stadium. The name didn't stick along as changing economics forced a naming rights partner's logo on the stadium in exchange for multi-million dollar checks that went to help pay off players salaries.
A series of factors led both the American and National Leagues in baseball to expand in 1969. Neither league had an expansion plans on the table but when Kansas City A's owner took his team to Oakland after the 1967 season, Missouri Senator Stuart Symington threatened Major League Baseball with stripping the antitrust exemption that the Supreme Court gave the game in 1922. Senator Symington demanded a replacement for Finley's A's as soon as possible which meant 1969.
Initially, the National League did not want to add teams until 1971 but with Symington breathing down Baseball's neck and the American League committing expansion franchises to Kansas City and Seattle, National League owners took San Diego as one territory and Montreal or Buffalo for the other expansion team. Montreal officials were about to secure a ballpark while San Diego had a major league stadium ready to go. Buffalo did not get a team and was a fallback in the event Montreal could not produce a stadium.
Murphy got two franchises into San Diego. Zuckerman waves pom poms for the Knicks. It would be interesting to see how Zuckerman would have reacted if he had more of a financial stake in the Washington Redskins and papers in other markets wanted the Redskins best player and spent years courting the superstar player.
NBA Commissioner David Stern cannot stop Zuckerman's bouquets to Lebron and Stern must know that the Knicks from Dolan to the team's president Donnie Walsh to others in the Garden, while not actively encouraging sportswriters and the papers to seduce Lebron are also not discouraging writers to blow kisses at Lebron. Sportswriters for all their talk about being professionals are fans too and are happy to cover a winning team. The New York Knicks basketball franchise has not been a good product for years.
Lebron is not going to sell any papers anyway. Those days are long gone; newspapers have too much competition from other media sources. But don't tell that to Mort on Rupert. They are in a tabloid war and if Lebron or Dwayne Wade, individually or together, don't come to New York, there is always Carmelo Anthony waiting for free agency in 2011. In fact some New York basketball fans, rather writers, think that Lebron will spurn them and are already making eyes at the Denver Nuggets player. Until Lebron makes a decision, the newspaper seduction of Lebron James will continue in New York.
Evan Weiner is an author, radio-TV commentator and a lecturer on "The Politics of Sports Business." He is available for speaking at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
By Evan Weiner
May 7, 2010
(New York, N. Y.) -- United States security officials are still investigating the Times Square bombing attempt, Greece is falling off the economic cliff, there is a flood cleanup in the heart of Nashville, the BP oil spill has not been capped in the Gulf of Mexico, the stock market blew a fuse on Thursday, a volcano in Iceland is still throwing ash into the sky and causing some airplane disruptions in Europe, the United Kingdom had an election and Roland Martin wore an ascot on CNN which became a running joke on The Daily Show for two days yet the New York Daily News, Mort Zuckerman's New York Daily News had an open letter to Lebron James on the front page of May 8's edition, please come to New York and sign with the Knicks after James becomes a free agent on July 1. Zuckerman's headline writer had a plea to Lebron.
This Is Home.
Actually Akron, Ohio is home for Lebron.
On pages 8 and 9 of the tabloid, there were articles and then a comparison between New York and Cleveland and why New York is better. This is not an unusual Daily News tactic. When the Knicks played Indiana in the playoffs in the 1990s, the tabloid poked fun at Indianapolis and Indiana using the headline "The Knicks Versus the Hicks".
Disrespectful yes, but tabloids have no time for hurt feelings. Especially New York tabloids in the midst of in what seems to be the Hundred Years' (tabloid) War.
The "This is Home" complete with pictures of the Statue of Liberty and Lebron front page (Emma Lazarus probably wasn't thinking of Lebron when she wrote give me your tired and poor line as part of her sonnet, The New Colossus which is immortalized on a plaque at the Statue of Liberty) was just the latest New York media's love note to Lebron, the wooing of Lebron in the New York papers is akin to the Knicks trying to recruit Lebron and it appears Knicks owner James Dolan has no problem with the New York tabloids gushing over Lebron who is a free agent come July 1. Dolan who himself owns a newspaper -- Newsday -- has been quiet on the subject, he could be accused of tampering with a player under contract to another team and Newsday has not been out in front of showing love and affection for the Cleveland Cavaliers player.
Zuckerman, whose paper (along with Rupert Murdoch's New York Post, the New York Times and Newsday) put up money for the establishment of the NYC2012 Olympic Committee and himself a part owner of the Washington Redskins, cannot be serious or can he? The Daily News is in a struggle with the New York Post for tabloid domination in the New York market, neither paper puts out much of a useable product as both are filled with mayhem, murder, entertainment and sports news with a lot of sensationalism and on top of that ESPN's new New York website poached Zuckerman's product and took a number of sportswriters.
The Daily News needs readership and if Lebron and the Statue of Liberty and "This is Home" sells papers, that is fine.
The Lebron on the Saturday cover and two-page in the non-sports section articles along with a blow up of Lebron in a Knicks uniform is a thoroughly unprofessional of a journalistic endeavor however and sophomoric at best. The paper seems to be on collectively hands and knees in begging mode, please Lebron look at me status. The only thing missing was Zuckerman's star writer, Mike Lupica (who in the 1990s was Garden President Dave Checketts stenographer and MSG's chief welcome wagon host in his love letters in the sand to MSG columns and Lupica is still pining for those days when the Knicks and Rangers mattered and the Garden was either the hippest or coolest spot on Earth---perhaps he can again hire people like he did back in the 1990s to tell him how the Rangers played and write coherent columns about hockey as well) did not write the valentines to Lebron pieces but that will soon be coming from the Daily News superstar political and sports columnist as the days dwindle down to July 1.
(Love Letters in the Sand was written by J. Fred Coots. Coots also wrote Santa Claus is Coming to Town and the Rangers Victory Song – the New York Rangers fight song back in the 1930s and 40s and beyond.)
The New York tabloid papers basketball coverage have been nothing more than let’s hope Lebron falls in love with New York cheerleaders and the papers are perhaps one step ahead of the New York sports talk radio shows in their infatuation. The hosts of those radio shows also pine for Lebron's love for New York.
Zuckerman, who has the very serious magazine, US News and World Report, has not mentioned in any of his coverage that Lebron's maximum annual NBA contract would allow him to make about $14 million a year is about the same amount of money that Madison Square Garden would pay in property taxes except Dolan doesn't have to pay property taxes. Dolan doesn't pay because in the early 1980s, Gulf and Western, then Garden owners, somehow convinced Mayor Ed Koch, the New York State Legislature and New York Governor Mario Cuomo that the NBA's Knicks and the NHL's Rangers could not be financially viable and could not compete with small market teams for talent without a reduction in property taxes and help with the Con Ed electric bill.
The Knicks and Rangers stayed in a valuable parcel of real estate not far from Macy's or Times Square, Gulf and Western got the property off the city's books and Con Ed customers paid for the privilege of having the two teams stay in Manhattan by picking up the Garden's electric tab. The New York State-Garden deal seems to be one of those that will last in perpetuity or eternity.
Zuckerman seems to be trying to play the Jack Murphy role in getting two big league sports franchise in San Diego in 1961 and 1969 in the pursuit of Lebron James. There is no secret that newspapers like to shape public opinion and make endorsements for political candidates and public policy. But a newspapers main goal is not reporting news per se. The news is the lure or the bait for people to look at the newspaper and check out the advertisements. It is the ad money that newspapers have lived and died with. Ad money has been evaporating for newspapers over the past decade and the product has suffered as writers have been let go.
The Lebron on the front cover is a ploy to get people to sample the Daily News. Zuckerman is not Jack Murphy though. Jack Murphy is a forgotten figure in sports and probably belongs in the Pro Football Hall of Fame and the Baseball Hall of Fame as a contributor. Murphy was a columnist and the sports editor of the San Diego Union in the 1950s. San Diego was a quiet, navy town in the 1950s but Murphy reached out to the owner of the American Football League's Los Angeles Chargers, Barron Hilton (the grandfather of Paris Hilton) and began a city pursuit of Hilton's football team. Murphy did convince Hilton that San Diego was a much better venue for his fan-challenged Los Angeles Chargers but there was a potential short term and long term problem.
San Diego lacked a suitable professional football stadium. With Hilton's team ready to move southward but not having a home, Murphy began writing that the Chargers needed a real stadium not the patchwork Balboa Stadium (some renovations at the facility to make it an acceptable AFL stadium were done by Chargers players including Jack Kemp and Paul Maguire) which sat 34,000 people. Murphy pushed to get public support in a referendum to build a real stadium and voters responded by passing the $27 million stadium ballot in November 1965. The new stadium opened in 1967 with the Chargers football team as the main tenant. After Murphy passed away in 1980, San Diego Stadium became Jack Murphy Stadium. The name didn't stick along as changing economics forced a naming rights partner's logo on the stadium in exchange for multi-million dollar checks that went to help pay off players salaries.
A series of factors led both the American and National Leagues in baseball to expand in 1969. Neither league had an expansion plans on the table but when Kansas City A's owner took his team to Oakland after the 1967 season, Missouri Senator Stuart Symington threatened Major League Baseball with stripping the antitrust exemption that the Supreme Court gave the game in 1922. Senator Symington demanded a replacement for Finley's A's as soon as possible which meant 1969.
Initially, the National League did not want to add teams until 1971 but with Symington breathing down Baseball's neck and the American League committing expansion franchises to Kansas City and Seattle, National League owners took San Diego as one territory and Montreal or Buffalo for the other expansion team. Montreal officials were about to secure a ballpark while San Diego had a major league stadium ready to go. Buffalo did not get a team and was a fallback in the event Montreal could not produce a stadium.
Murphy got two franchises into San Diego. Zuckerman waves pom poms for the Knicks. It would be interesting to see how Zuckerman would have reacted if he had more of a financial stake in the Washington Redskins and papers in other markets wanted the Redskins best player and spent years courting the superstar player.
NBA Commissioner David Stern cannot stop Zuckerman's bouquets to Lebron and Stern must know that the Knicks from Dolan to the team's president Donnie Walsh to others in the Garden, while not actively encouraging sportswriters and the papers to seduce Lebron are also not discouraging writers to blow kisses at Lebron. Sportswriters for all their talk about being professionals are fans too and are happy to cover a winning team. The New York Knicks basketball franchise has not been a good product for years.
Lebron is not going to sell any papers anyway. Those days are long gone; newspapers have too much competition from other media sources. But don't tell that to Mort on Rupert. They are in a tabloid war and if Lebron or Dwayne Wade, individually or together, don't come to New York, there is always Carmelo Anthony waiting for free agency in 2011. In fact some New York basketball fans, rather writers, think that Lebron will spurn them and are already making eyes at the Denver Nuggets player. Until Lebron makes a decision, the newspaper seduction of Lebron James will continue in New York.
Evan Weiner is an author, radio-TV commentator and a lecturer on "The Politics of Sports Business." He is available for speaking at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Why N.J. cannot get a Major League Baseball team
WEDNESDAY, 05 MAY 2010 12:45
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
COMMENTARY
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/why-nj-cannot-get-a-major-league-baseball-team
Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig has a committee trying to figure out whether Oakland A's owner Lew Wolff can move his team from Oakland to San Jose, if San Jose can find the money and is able to build a mostly publicly-financed baseball stadium. The committee has not figured out, as of yet, if they know the way to San Jose but there will be an answer some day. What happens in Northern California should have no immediate impact on New Jersey. But as it stands now, neither San Jose nor northern New Jersey can be the home of a major league baseball team.
The areas are in other team's territories and Major League Baseball, thanks to an antitrust exemption, can just say no to anyone who wants to put a team in San Jose or East Rutherford, New Jersey. There is no proposal at the present time to attract a Major League team to New Jersey although when then Baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth opened the door to possible expansion in 1987, New Jersey had a presentation ready. New Jersey also tried to attract George Steinbrenner's interest and get him to move the Yankees across the Hudson in the 1990s.
There are two owners of Major League Baseball teams who have serious doubts about the revenue production capabilities of their present stadiums. Wolff in Oakland and Stuart Sternberg in St. Petersburg.
Wolff has failed in getting a "stadium-village" for his A's and a real estate in Oakland and in Fremont, which is about 20 miles south on the I-880 of the team's present home at the Oakland Coliseum. In St. Petersburg, Tampa Rays ownership, which includes Managing General Partner Stuart Sternberg of Rye, New York is looking for a new stadium in either St. Petersburg or Tampa.
There was a rumor, which was just a rumor, that Rays ownership thought about moving the Rays to Connecticut. There is one other major fly in the ointment though. The Rays' lease with the St. Petersburg stadium ends in 2027.
Both Wolff and Sternberg are trying to work out an arrangement to remain in their present markets. Wolff can get out of his lease within a few years in Oakland as he signed a short-term agreement to keep his team at the Coliseum through 2013. Here is the problem that Wolff faces and a problem that New Jersey would face if someone in the state decided to go after a Major League Baseball team.
Major League Baseball assigns territories to teams. The San Francisco Giants ownership has the San Jose/Santa Clara County territory which is more than 40 miles south of the Giants China Basin ballpark. The Oakland Coliseum is considerably closer to San Francisco and is accessible by the Bay Area Rapid Transit and is not far down the I-880 from the Bay Area Bridge. San Jose became Giants territory in the 1990s when the team attempted to get a stadium built in the South Bay's most populous city. Neither San Jose nor Santa Clara voters had any interest in paying for a Giants stadium and turned down ballpark referendums. Despite the no votes, MLB has not changed the Giants' territorial claim.
Major League Baseball does not live by the same antitrust laws as normal businesses because the Supreme Court of the United States in 1922 ruled that baseball was a game and not a business and gave the "game" an antitrust exemption which still applies to areas like territories and television. Wolff is blocked from even thinking about crossing the Santa Clara County line because that would be crossing his baseball brothers. Wolff tried to get as close as he could to San Jose and Santa Clara and not upsetting the Giants ownership by trying to relocate to Fremont.
Now Wolff is openly talking to San Jose despite the fact that Giants ownership will not cede the territory and Giants ownership through a subsidiary, the San Jose Giants — the California League Class A Giants affiliate — is trying to block San Jose from building a stadium. Giants ownership has a one-quarter interest in the San Jose Giants.
Wolff's Oakland A's are struggling drawing people this year. Oakland does not have the corporate crowd that fills the Giants China Basin stadium. Santa Clara residents might send Major League Baseball is big wakeup call on June 8 by going against national trends and voting to spend public money to build a football stadium for the San Francisco 49ers to show the Giants, MLB and the city of San Francisco that they are fed up with the Giants territorial claims and to stick it to San Francisco city officials and San Francisco Giants ownership by "stealing" or "poaching" the 49ers. Santa Clara is willing to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in the stadium.
San Jose is the Silicone Valley and somehow both MLB and the Giants are convinced that money headed up the 101 Freeway to San Francisco will shift to a San Jose baseball team which would have a crippling affect on the Giants. The San Francisco baseball team is one hour away from San Jose; Oakland is across the Bay and is accessible by mass transit.
Wolff doesn't seem to want to sue Major League Baseball and challenge the antitrust exemption. Wolff shares the Oakland Coliseum with the NFL's Raiders and Raiders owner Al Davis did sue the NFL in the 1980s when the league interfered with his negotiations with the Coliseum for a lease extension and then tried to block the Raiders' move to Los Angeles.
Davis won.
In 1984, San Diego Clippers owner Donald Sterling thumbed his nose at NBA officials and moved his franchise to Los Angeles without league consent. He was fined $100 million for the move. Sterling sued the league. The two parties settled. Sterling stayed in LA and paid the NBA a $6 million fine.
Major League Baseball did not move a team between 1971 and 2004. The Washington Senators left the nation's capital for Arlington, Texas in 1972. A number of attempted franchise shifts failed for various reasons including San Diego going to Washington in 1974, the Giants to Toronto in 1976, Oakland to Denver in 1979. A number of teams looked at moving to Tampa including the Giants, Seattle Mariners, George W. Bush's Texas Rangers and the Minnesota Twins. Minnesota ownership nearly sold the team to Greensboro, North Carolina interests in the late 1990s if a stadium became available in that North Carolina city. Voters turned down a Greensboro stadium in 1998.
It is not easy to move a team to open markets like Tampa was before 1995, like Denver before 1991, like Washington between 1972 and 2004. What chance does San Jose have? What chance does New Jersey or Connecticut have?
New Jersey may have the right stuff for a Major League Baseball team. In 2000, Major League Baseball had big names like Paul Volcker, the former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Richard C. Levin, the Yale University President, the former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell and media personality George Will, a former political operative and college professor who won a Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 1977, analyze baseball's financial condition.
The "Blue Ribbon Panel" on baseball economics left the door open for franchise relocation to places like northern New Jersey and Washington despite the presence of teams in the vicinity. New Jersey or Connecticut have a major revenue stream that is currently untapped. Cablevision's Madison Square Garden network has little summer programming of note that would draw in potential viewers since the Yankees formed the YES Network and the Mets, along with Time Warner and Comcast, started SNY. There probably is more than $60 million on the table waiting for a third New York City area team.
New York City is still the financial capital of the United States. The city once had three baseball teams - the Yankees, the Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers. Walter O'Malley took his Dodgers to Los Angeles in 1957 although he kicked the tires and his Dodgers played seven games at Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City, N.J. in 1956 and 1957. O'Malley used Jersey City as leverage in his bid to get New York to spring for a new stadium for his Dodgers. Giants owner Horace Stoneham seemed more determined to move his team from upper Manhattan out of the New York area than O'Malley ... with Minneapolis one of his choices.
With the population, the corporate wealth and television monies available, New York City or northern New Jersey would be ripe for a failing franchise. But New Jersey is blocked (as Connecticut would be) because both the Yankees and Mets would nix any move into their territories and the Philadelphia Phillies ownership would probably object to a third New York area team if it was placed in New Jersey. (The Philadelphia Flyers got a million dollars from John McMullen when he bought the Colorado Rockies NHL team and move his newly acquired team into the Meadowlands in 1982).
In Oakland, Wolff has Comcast's TV money, but he lacks corporate support. San Jose wants to build a stadium and Oakland is back in the game.
There are three essentials to running a successful franchise whether it is in Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League or the National Basketball Association or even Major League Soccer. Government support is an absolute necessity in terms of building a facility. Government can build the place with taxpayers' dollars or give substantial tax breaks and incentives (as the Giants/Jets stadium entity is receiving at the Meadowlands) to owners to build their own plants. The federal government regulates Cable TV where billions are made by sports franchises and separates the Yankees, Mets, Angels, Red Sox, Phillies and Mariners from the rest of baseball and corporate support. Corporates can take 50 cents off the dollar in buying luxury boxes, club seats for business purposes.
Wolff already shares the market with the Giants in the Bay Area and cannot get his foot in the door in San Jose. If Sternberg was looking at the New York City area, he would get a door slammed in his face. Sternberg is not seeking a New York area facility and is concentrating on getting a place built in Tampa. The lease in St. Pete has a long way to go but as the late John McMullen once said, a contract is just a piece of paper.
Major League Baseball moved the financially troubled and ownerless Montreal Expos into Washington after the 2004 season once MLB secured a commitment from the city that it would build a state-of-the-art baseball facility. Remember McMullen's comment.
A contract is just a piece of paper.
Washington is about 40 miles from Baltimore and was a part of the Peter Angelos' Baltimore Orioles territory. MLB worked out a deal with Angelos which gave him a regional cable TV network, the Mid Atlantic Sports Network, as a partial payment for the Washington team which "invaded" his territory. That agreement might work in Wolff's favor and could be used by someone in New Jersey if that someone decided that New Jersey and Major League Baseball are perfect together.
The owners of the Seattle SuperSonics took their NBA team to Oklahoma City with two years left on their contract in Seattle to use the publicly financed and refinanced facility for their basketball team. Clayton Bennett reached a financial agreement with Seattle and left. But Bennett had the NBA Commissioner David Stern's blessing. Bruce Ratner is taking the Nets from the Meadowlands to Newark for the next two years with New Jersey's approval along with Stern.
New Jersey had the right stuff for Major League Baseball in 2000 according to Volcker, Levin, Mitchell and Will. The state could not go after the Montreal Expos franchise when it was up for sale in 2002, 2003 and 2004 because of the antitrust exemption. That is why people who want a Major League Baseball team in New Jersey should be paying close attention to Wolff's actions in Oakland and San Jose and what Selig's committee rules.
The door to Major League Baseball in New Jersey could all of a sudden open.
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
COMMENTARY
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/why-nj-cannot-get-a-major-league-baseball-team
Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig has a committee trying to figure out whether Oakland A's owner Lew Wolff can move his team from Oakland to San Jose, if San Jose can find the money and is able to build a mostly publicly-financed baseball stadium. The committee has not figured out, as of yet, if they know the way to San Jose but there will be an answer some day. What happens in Northern California should have no immediate impact on New Jersey. But as it stands now, neither San Jose nor northern New Jersey can be the home of a major league baseball team.
The areas are in other team's territories and Major League Baseball, thanks to an antitrust exemption, can just say no to anyone who wants to put a team in San Jose or East Rutherford, New Jersey. There is no proposal at the present time to attract a Major League team to New Jersey although when then Baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth opened the door to possible expansion in 1987, New Jersey had a presentation ready. New Jersey also tried to attract George Steinbrenner's interest and get him to move the Yankees across the Hudson in the 1990s.
There are two owners of Major League Baseball teams who have serious doubts about the revenue production capabilities of their present stadiums. Wolff in Oakland and Stuart Sternberg in St. Petersburg.
Wolff has failed in getting a "stadium-village" for his A's and a real estate in Oakland and in Fremont, which is about 20 miles south on the I-880 of the team's present home at the Oakland Coliseum. In St. Petersburg, Tampa Rays ownership, which includes Managing General Partner Stuart Sternberg of Rye, New York is looking for a new stadium in either St. Petersburg or Tampa.
There was a rumor, which was just a rumor, that Rays ownership thought about moving the Rays to Connecticut. There is one other major fly in the ointment though. The Rays' lease with the St. Petersburg stadium ends in 2027.
Both Wolff and Sternberg are trying to work out an arrangement to remain in their present markets. Wolff can get out of his lease within a few years in Oakland as he signed a short-term agreement to keep his team at the Coliseum through 2013. Here is the problem that Wolff faces and a problem that New Jersey would face if someone in the state decided to go after a Major League Baseball team.
Major League Baseball assigns territories to teams. The San Francisco Giants ownership has the San Jose/Santa Clara County territory which is more than 40 miles south of the Giants China Basin ballpark. The Oakland Coliseum is considerably closer to San Francisco and is accessible by the Bay Area Rapid Transit and is not far down the I-880 from the Bay Area Bridge. San Jose became Giants territory in the 1990s when the team attempted to get a stadium built in the South Bay's most populous city. Neither San Jose nor Santa Clara voters had any interest in paying for a Giants stadium and turned down ballpark referendums. Despite the no votes, MLB has not changed the Giants' territorial claim.
Major League Baseball does not live by the same antitrust laws as normal businesses because the Supreme Court of the United States in 1922 ruled that baseball was a game and not a business and gave the "game" an antitrust exemption which still applies to areas like territories and television. Wolff is blocked from even thinking about crossing the Santa Clara County line because that would be crossing his baseball brothers. Wolff tried to get as close as he could to San Jose and Santa Clara and not upsetting the Giants ownership by trying to relocate to Fremont.
Now Wolff is openly talking to San Jose despite the fact that Giants ownership will not cede the territory and Giants ownership through a subsidiary, the San Jose Giants — the California League Class A Giants affiliate — is trying to block San Jose from building a stadium. Giants ownership has a one-quarter interest in the San Jose Giants.
Wolff's Oakland A's are struggling drawing people this year. Oakland does not have the corporate crowd that fills the Giants China Basin stadium. Santa Clara residents might send Major League Baseball is big wakeup call on June 8 by going against national trends and voting to spend public money to build a football stadium for the San Francisco 49ers to show the Giants, MLB and the city of San Francisco that they are fed up with the Giants territorial claims and to stick it to San Francisco city officials and San Francisco Giants ownership by "stealing" or "poaching" the 49ers. Santa Clara is willing to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in the stadium.
San Jose is the Silicone Valley and somehow both MLB and the Giants are convinced that money headed up the 101 Freeway to San Francisco will shift to a San Jose baseball team which would have a crippling affect on the Giants. The San Francisco baseball team is one hour away from San Jose; Oakland is across the Bay and is accessible by mass transit.
Wolff doesn't seem to want to sue Major League Baseball and challenge the antitrust exemption. Wolff shares the Oakland Coliseum with the NFL's Raiders and Raiders owner Al Davis did sue the NFL in the 1980s when the league interfered with his negotiations with the Coliseum for a lease extension and then tried to block the Raiders' move to Los Angeles.
Davis won.
In 1984, San Diego Clippers owner Donald Sterling thumbed his nose at NBA officials and moved his franchise to Los Angeles without league consent. He was fined $100 million for the move. Sterling sued the league. The two parties settled. Sterling stayed in LA and paid the NBA a $6 million fine.
Major League Baseball did not move a team between 1971 and 2004. The Washington Senators left the nation's capital for Arlington, Texas in 1972. A number of attempted franchise shifts failed for various reasons including San Diego going to Washington in 1974, the Giants to Toronto in 1976, Oakland to Denver in 1979. A number of teams looked at moving to Tampa including the Giants, Seattle Mariners, George W. Bush's Texas Rangers and the Minnesota Twins. Minnesota ownership nearly sold the team to Greensboro, North Carolina interests in the late 1990s if a stadium became available in that North Carolina city. Voters turned down a Greensboro stadium in 1998.
It is not easy to move a team to open markets like Tampa was before 1995, like Denver before 1991, like Washington between 1972 and 2004. What chance does San Jose have? What chance does New Jersey or Connecticut have?
New Jersey may have the right stuff for a Major League Baseball team. In 2000, Major League Baseball had big names like Paul Volcker, the former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Richard C. Levin, the Yale University President, the former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell and media personality George Will, a former political operative and college professor who won a Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 1977, analyze baseball's financial condition.
The "Blue Ribbon Panel" on baseball economics left the door open for franchise relocation to places like northern New Jersey and Washington despite the presence of teams in the vicinity. New Jersey or Connecticut have a major revenue stream that is currently untapped. Cablevision's Madison Square Garden network has little summer programming of note that would draw in potential viewers since the Yankees formed the YES Network and the Mets, along with Time Warner and Comcast, started SNY. There probably is more than $60 million on the table waiting for a third New York City area team.
New York City is still the financial capital of the United States. The city once had three baseball teams - the Yankees, the Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers. Walter O'Malley took his Dodgers to Los Angeles in 1957 although he kicked the tires and his Dodgers played seven games at Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City, N.J. in 1956 and 1957. O'Malley used Jersey City as leverage in his bid to get New York to spring for a new stadium for his Dodgers. Giants owner Horace Stoneham seemed more determined to move his team from upper Manhattan out of the New York area than O'Malley ... with Minneapolis one of his choices.
With the population, the corporate wealth and television monies available, New York City or northern New Jersey would be ripe for a failing franchise. But New Jersey is blocked (as Connecticut would be) because both the Yankees and Mets would nix any move into their territories and the Philadelphia Phillies ownership would probably object to a third New York area team if it was placed in New Jersey. (The Philadelphia Flyers got a million dollars from John McMullen when he bought the Colorado Rockies NHL team and move his newly acquired team into the Meadowlands in 1982).
In Oakland, Wolff has Comcast's TV money, but he lacks corporate support. San Jose wants to build a stadium and Oakland is back in the game.
There are three essentials to running a successful franchise whether it is in Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League or the National Basketball Association or even Major League Soccer. Government support is an absolute necessity in terms of building a facility. Government can build the place with taxpayers' dollars or give substantial tax breaks and incentives (as the Giants/Jets stadium entity is receiving at the Meadowlands) to owners to build their own plants. The federal government regulates Cable TV where billions are made by sports franchises and separates the Yankees, Mets, Angels, Red Sox, Phillies and Mariners from the rest of baseball and corporate support. Corporates can take 50 cents off the dollar in buying luxury boxes, club seats for business purposes.
Wolff already shares the market with the Giants in the Bay Area and cannot get his foot in the door in San Jose. If Sternberg was looking at the New York City area, he would get a door slammed in his face. Sternberg is not seeking a New York area facility and is concentrating on getting a place built in Tampa. The lease in St. Pete has a long way to go but as the late John McMullen once said, a contract is just a piece of paper.
Major League Baseball moved the financially troubled and ownerless Montreal Expos into Washington after the 2004 season once MLB secured a commitment from the city that it would build a state-of-the-art baseball facility. Remember McMullen's comment.
A contract is just a piece of paper.
Washington is about 40 miles from Baltimore and was a part of the Peter Angelos' Baltimore Orioles territory. MLB worked out a deal with Angelos which gave him a regional cable TV network, the Mid Atlantic Sports Network, as a partial payment for the Washington team which "invaded" his territory. That agreement might work in Wolff's favor and could be used by someone in New Jersey if that someone decided that New Jersey and Major League Baseball are perfect together.
The owners of the Seattle SuperSonics took their NBA team to Oklahoma City with two years left on their contract in Seattle to use the publicly financed and refinanced facility for their basketball team. Clayton Bennett reached a financial agreement with Seattle and left. But Bennett had the NBA Commissioner David Stern's blessing. Bruce Ratner is taking the Nets from the Meadowlands to Newark for the next two years with New Jersey's approval along with Stern.
New Jersey had the right stuff for Major League Baseball in 2000 according to Volcker, Levin, Mitchell and Will. The state could not go after the Montreal Expos franchise when it was up for sale in 2002, 2003 and 2004 because of the antitrust exemption. That is why people who want a Major League Baseball team in New Jersey should be paying close attention to Wolff's actions in Oakland and San Jose and what Selig's committee rules.
The door to Major League Baseball in New Jersey could all of a sudden open.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Big time college sports: Something is happening around here, what it is ain’t exactly clear
Big time college sports: Something is happening around here, what it is ain’t exactly clear
http://dailycaller.com/2010/05/04/big-time-college-sports-something-is-happening-around-here-what-it-is-ain%E2%80%99t-exactly-clear/
By Evan Weiner - The Daily Caller 05/04/10 at 2:17 AM
If you’re curious as to why your cable or satellite television bill will go up, this column is for you. The people who bring you the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s Men’s Basketball Tournament, the event also known as March Madness, will also be bringing you a higher cable or satellite television bill. But you probably won’t have the rate hike explained to you by your local television provider. The NCAA just got a bump TV contract renewal for one of the crown jewels of American sports – March Madness –and a significant amount of that money will come from the people who pay the bills for cable Internet and wireless video.
You.
There is something happening here, but what it is ain’t exactly clear, to quote Stephen Stills. Big-time college sports is yet again evolving, with the new contract serving as merely a jumping off point. The only certainty is that the cost of delivering college sports to the consumer will be going up, whether it is on cable, satellite TV, or broadband.
The winds of change in big-time college sports will be steered by the jet stream of the recently concluded NCAA-CBS/Turner Broadcasting (Time Warner) agreement that will see the over-the-air network, CBS and the cable/broadband/wireless distributor Turner Broadcasting, showing the Division I Men’s Basketball Championship between 2011 and 2024 on their delivery systems. The distributors, CBS and Turner Sports, will pay the NCAA members about $10.8 billion over the life of that contract. All the tournament games will be shown live across four national networks, beginning in 2010.
CBS Sports and Turner Broadcasting will help out on the NCAA’s corporate marketing program.
The good news for college basketball fans, consumers, alumni and gamblers (Like it or not, the gambling community makes up a sizeable portion of audience that follows so-called student-athletes playing games for colleges) is that all of the games will be available on television at the same time. The bad news is that people with no interest in the games will subsidize the $10.8 billion contract, which means they will be unknowingly subsidizing big time college sports to the tune of $740 million annually through 2024.
The new good news for the big-time college programs, as well as the smaller schools in Division II and III,is that they will get a chunk of that $740 million to underwrite their entire intercollegiate sports program, from football to fencing in both men’s and women’s sports. College sports is a financially losing proposition for most schools, with a handful of exceptions, like Michigan and Missouri. It costs an awful lot of money to run full sports programs, even if the students receive just a scholarship and a chance to get an education if they so desire.
The NCAA released a statement trying to clarify what the $10.8 billion will do by pointing out that “approximately 96 percent of the revenue generated from this new agreement will be used to benefit student-athletes through either programs, services or direct distribution to member conferences and schools. Further, the agreement ensures student-athletes across all three NCAA divisions will continue to be supported in a broad range of championship opportunities, access to funds for personal and educational needs, and through scholarships in Divisions I and II.”
Only football and basketball are sports moneymakers for college and universities that have decided to swim in the very deep end of the pool.
Just how will CBS and Turner Sports pay the actual bill? Sumner Redstone’s CBS has to hope that there will not be a deep recession anytime in the next 14 years which will scare advertisers away from the TV, because over-the-air TV has just one revenue source to cover the bills — sponsorship or marketing partners — while Turner Broadcasting (Time Warner) has a dual revenue stream, user fees and advertising.
Most of the money needed to pay off the cable/satellite TV bill will come from consumers. Although Time Warner will never give exact figures as to how much they charge consumers for TNT, TBS or truTV, those numbers are believed to be a dollar a subscriber for TNT (which has sports content like the National Basketball Association), fifty cents for TBS (which has a Major League Baseball deal in place, a $310 million, seven year agreement which started in 2007 and ends in 2013 for a package of 26 Sunday games during the season and the first round of the playoffs) and about a dime for the ratings-challenged truTV, which used to be the ratings-challenged Court TV.
Those rates will go up and will be passed onto the consumer. Someone has to pay the freight, and it will not be Redstone or Time Warner. They will play with other people’s money.
Time Warner is actually footing the bill, with CBS paying Time Warner back as much as $670 million a year. CBS will show the Final Four until 2015 and then the over-the-air network, CBS and the dual revenue cable company Time Warner, will alternate coverage on an annual basis.
CBS does own College Sports TV or CSTV, which is a digital cable channel, which will not be part of the CBS-Turner Broadcasting-NCAA deal. CSTV has coverage of NCAA Division’s I, II, and III, that features over 35 men’s and women’s college sports, in addition to nine NCAA championships. CSTV has multi–media and marketing rights for the Mountain West Conference, the Atlantic 10 Conference, Conference USA, the Big West Conference, the Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Navy athletics. CSTV is another source of revenue for college programs, but it is not the plum that schools are after.
Conferences want to own a network, like the New York Yankees YESNetwork or the Boston Red Sox-Bruins New England Sports Network or the New York Mets SNY (which is partially owned by Time Warner and Comcast) or the Cablevision New York Knicks-Rangers-Madison Square Garden Network or the Chicago Bulls, Cubs, White Sox, Blackhawks ownership with Comcast of the Chicago Sports Net. Or Stan Kroenke Altitude Sports Network, which features Kroenke Colorado Avalanche, Denver Nuggets and Colorado Rapids sports franchises.
That is where the real money can be made.
There is something happening here, but what it is ain’t exactly clear.
Just how much will consumers have to pay once 2016 rolls around, and will Congress take a look at big-time sports events migrating to cable, along with lesser events? Time Warner will be renewing a good many of the company’s carriage agreements with multiple system operators (MSOs) like Comcast, Cablevision and Cox. Will Time Warner, which is also a multiple system operator, hold up the major and minor MSOs and demand more money from them because of the major investment in college sports? Will the other MSOs say yes and pass the added cost to consumers?
While Time Warner figures out strategy to maximize revenues on this deal, the big-time college conferences may be in an “expansion” mode. The Southeast Conference is eyeing “expansion” just in case. The “just in case” scenario will be played out if the Big Ten (which has a cable TV network with Comcast, the country’s largest MSO) decides to add a number of schools to reach 16 and go beyond the Midwest.
There is a lot of money available from the Big Ten moves east (perhaps Rutgers or Pittsburgh) or south or west from cable TV. The Southeast Conference isn’t hurting for capital as it has a $3 million, 15-year deal with CBS and ESPN for football games. The old argument of why expand because our new partners will take a share of the TV deal will certainly come up at the next SEC meeting in May. This SEC is not the Security and Exchange Commission. It is a college conference looking for more money.
College conferences have been adding schools because of the possibility of more money for the last decade. The Atlantic Coast Conference poached Big East schools and took Miami, Boston College and Virginia Tech, which annoyed Connecticut officials, and the state sued to first block the ACC’s actions and then to get some money for damages. The Big East went after other conference schools to replace the ones that defected. It caused a realignment of conferences.
The Big Ten kicked the tires and thought about adding Rutgers and then Pittsburgh. So far, there is just talk that the Big Ten will go from 11 schools to possibly 12, 14 or 16. To do that, the conference would have to poach possible Big East schools like Rutgers or Syracuse or Pittsburgh or convince Notre Dame to drop being an independent (Notre Dame has a deal with NBC, an entity that will merge with Comcast. Comcast is partners with the Big Ten on a cable TV network) or perhaps go after Missouri of the Big 12 Conference. The college to change conferences will trigger an avalanche of moves, all done for TV revenue, most of which will come from cable TV consumers, whether they like sports or not or watch sports or not.
Something may happen here, but what it is exactly ain’t clear. Big time college sports business is changing or evolving, and because of that it is not out of the question that NCAA officials, over-the-air and cable TV executives and college presidents and chancellors, along with conference commissioners and athletic directors, will be hauled down before Congress to explain the real business of college sports and how “super conferences” could be formed because of TV opportunities. Congress has given big-time college sports a lot of anti-competition protection over the years, including a tax-exempt status.
Evan Weiner is an author, radio-TV commentator and lecturer on “The Politics and Business of Sports” and can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2010/05/04/big-time-college-sports-something-is-happening-around-here-what-it-is-ain%e2%80%99t-exactly-clear/print/#ixzz0mxcfEskJ
http://dailycaller.com/2010/05/04/big-time-college-sports-something-is-happening-around-here-what-it-is-ain%E2%80%99t-exactly-clear/
By Evan Weiner - The Daily Caller 05/04/10 at 2:17 AM
If you’re curious as to why your cable or satellite television bill will go up, this column is for you. The people who bring you the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s Men’s Basketball Tournament, the event also known as March Madness, will also be bringing you a higher cable or satellite television bill. But you probably won’t have the rate hike explained to you by your local television provider. The NCAA just got a bump TV contract renewal for one of the crown jewels of American sports – March Madness –and a significant amount of that money will come from the people who pay the bills for cable Internet and wireless video.
You.
There is something happening here, but what it is ain’t exactly clear, to quote Stephen Stills. Big-time college sports is yet again evolving, with the new contract serving as merely a jumping off point. The only certainty is that the cost of delivering college sports to the consumer will be going up, whether it is on cable, satellite TV, or broadband.
The winds of change in big-time college sports will be steered by the jet stream of the recently concluded NCAA-CBS/Turner Broadcasting (Time Warner) agreement that will see the over-the-air network, CBS and the cable/broadband/wireless distributor Turner Broadcasting, showing the Division I Men’s Basketball Championship between 2011 and 2024 on their delivery systems. The distributors, CBS and Turner Sports, will pay the NCAA members about $10.8 billion over the life of that contract. All the tournament games will be shown live across four national networks, beginning in 2010.
CBS Sports and Turner Broadcasting will help out on the NCAA’s corporate marketing program.
The good news for college basketball fans, consumers, alumni and gamblers (Like it or not, the gambling community makes up a sizeable portion of audience that follows so-called student-athletes playing games for colleges) is that all of the games will be available on television at the same time. The bad news is that people with no interest in the games will subsidize the $10.8 billion contract, which means they will be unknowingly subsidizing big time college sports to the tune of $740 million annually through 2024.
The new good news for the big-time college programs, as well as the smaller schools in Division II and III,is that they will get a chunk of that $740 million to underwrite their entire intercollegiate sports program, from football to fencing in both men’s and women’s sports. College sports is a financially losing proposition for most schools, with a handful of exceptions, like Michigan and Missouri. It costs an awful lot of money to run full sports programs, even if the students receive just a scholarship and a chance to get an education if they so desire.
The NCAA released a statement trying to clarify what the $10.8 billion will do by pointing out that “approximately 96 percent of the revenue generated from this new agreement will be used to benefit student-athletes through either programs, services or direct distribution to member conferences and schools. Further, the agreement ensures student-athletes across all three NCAA divisions will continue to be supported in a broad range of championship opportunities, access to funds for personal and educational needs, and through scholarships in Divisions I and II.”
Only football and basketball are sports moneymakers for college and universities that have decided to swim in the very deep end of the pool.
Just how will CBS and Turner Sports pay the actual bill? Sumner Redstone’s CBS has to hope that there will not be a deep recession anytime in the next 14 years which will scare advertisers away from the TV, because over-the-air TV has just one revenue source to cover the bills — sponsorship or marketing partners — while Turner Broadcasting (Time Warner) has a dual revenue stream, user fees and advertising.
Most of the money needed to pay off the cable/satellite TV bill will come from consumers. Although Time Warner will never give exact figures as to how much they charge consumers for TNT, TBS or truTV, those numbers are believed to be a dollar a subscriber for TNT (which has sports content like the National Basketball Association), fifty cents for TBS (which has a Major League Baseball deal in place, a $310 million, seven year agreement which started in 2007 and ends in 2013 for a package of 26 Sunday games during the season and the first round of the playoffs) and about a dime for the ratings-challenged truTV, which used to be the ratings-challenged Court TV.
Those rates will go up and will be passed onto the consumer. Someone has to pay the freight, and it will not be Redstone or Time Warner. They will play with other people’s money.
Time Warner is actually footing the bill, with CBS paying Time Warner back as much as $670 million a year. CBS will show the Final Four until 2015 and then the over-the-air network, CBS and the dual revenue cable company Time Warner, will alternate coverage on an annual basis.
CBS does own College Sports TV or CSTV, which is a digital cable channel, which will not be part of the CBS-Turner Broadcasting-NCAA deal. CSTV has coverage of NCAA Division’s I, II, and III, that features over 35 men’s and women’s college sports, in addition to nine NCAA championships. CSTV has multi–media and marketing rights for the Mountain West Conference, the Atlantic 10 Conference, Conference USA, the Big West Conference, the Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Navy athletics. CSTV is another source of revenue for college programs, but it is not the plum that schools are after.
Conferences want to own a network, like the New York Yankees YESNetwork or the Boston Red Sox-Bruins New England Sports Network or the New York Mets SNY (which is partially owned by Time Warner and Comcast) or the Cablevision New York Knicks-Rangers-Madison Square Garden Network or the Chicago Bulls, Cubs, White Sox, Blackhawks ownership with Comcast of the Chicago Sports Net. Or Stan Kroenke Altitude Sports Network, which features Kroenke Colorado Avalanche, Denver Nuggets and Colorado Rapids sports franchises.
That is where the real money can be made.
There is something happening here, but what it is ain’t exactly clear.
Just how much will consumers have to pay once 2016 rolls around, and will Congress take a look at big-time sports events migrating to cable, along with lesser events? Time Warner will be renewing a good many of the company’s carriage agreements with multiple system operators (MSOs) like Comcast, Cablevision and Cox. Will Time Warner, which is also a multiple system operator, hold up the major and minor MSOs and demand more money from them because of the major investment in college sports? Will the other MSOs say yes and pass the added cost to consumers?
While Time Warner figures out strategy to maximize revenues on this deal, the big-time college conferences may be in an “expansion” mode. The Southeast Conference is eyeing “expansion” just in case. The “just in case” scenario will be played out if the Big Ten (which has a cable TV network with Comcast, the country’s largest MSO) decides to add a number of schools to reach 16 and go beyond the Midwest.
There is a lot of money available from the Big Ten moves east (perhaps Rutgers or Pittsburgh) or south or west from cable TV. The Southeast Conference isn’t hurting for capital as it has a $3 million, 15-year deal with CBS and ESPN for football games. The old argument of why expand because our new partners will take a share of the TV deal will certainly come up at the next SEC meeting in May. This SEC is not the Security and Exchange Commission. It is a college conference looking for more money.
College conferences have been adding schools because of the possibility of more money for the last decade. The Atlantic Coast Conference poached Big East schools and took Miami, Boston College and Virginia Tech, which annoyed Connecticut officials, and the state sued to first block the ACC’s actions and then to get some money for damages. The Big East went after other conference schools to replace the ones that defected. It caused a realignment of conferences.
The Big Ten kicked the tires and thought about adding Rutgers and then Pittsburgh. So far, there is just talk that the Big Ten will go from 11 schools to possibly 12, 14 or 16. To do that, the conference would have to poach possible Big East schools like Rutgers or Syracuse or Pittsburgh or convince Notre Dame to drop being an independent (Notre Dame has a deal with NBC, an entity that will merge with Comcast. Comcast is partners with the Big Ten on a cable TV network) or perhaps go after Missouri of the Big 12 Conference. The college to change conferences will trigger an avalanche of moves, all done for TV revenue, most of which will come from cable TV consumers, whether they like sports or not or watch sports or not.
Something may happen here, but what it is exactly ain’t clear. Big time college sports business is changing or evolving, and because of that it is not out of the question that NCAA officials, over-the-air and cable TV executives and college presidents and chancellors, along with conference commissioners and athletic directors, will be hauled down before Congress to explain the real business of college sports and how “super conferences” could be formed because of TV opportunities. Congress has given big-time college sports a lot of anti-competition protection over the years, including a tax-exempt status.
Evan Weiner is an author, radio-TV commentator and lecturer on “The Politics and Business of Sports” and can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2010/05/04/big-time-college-sports-something-is-happening-around-here-what-it-is-ain%e2%80%99t-exactly-clear/print/#ixzz0mxcfEskJ
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Could Santa Clara Voters Say Yes to Raising Taxes for a Football Stadium?
Could Santa Clara Voters Say Yes to Raising Taxes for a Football Stadium?
By Evan Weiner
May 2, 2010
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-3926-Business-of-Sports-Examiner~y2010m5d2-Could-Santa-Clara-voters-say-yes-to-raising-taxes-for-a-football-stadium
(New York, N. Y.) -- In this day and age of Tea Baggers or the Coffee Party and other rabble rousers jumping up and down and shouting to provide TV and radio producers a chance of showing "Good TV" or providing "Good radio", people in Santa Clara, California may be leaning to saying yes to a proposal that would ultimately provide a partially publicly financed stadium for the San Francisco 49ers.
Stadium stories generally produce "good TV", sound bites that inflame, and that ultimately leads to radio pillaging. It is just how it works because "Good TV" or "Good radio" brings in advertising revenue and may have nothing at all to do with the merits of a story. We expect more from a ten year old than we do from a radio personality like oh say New York's WFAN radio's Evan Roberts who repeatedly called Philadelphia Phillies fans "animals." A ten year old acting up in school is marched to the Principal's office and reprimanded. In radio lying about a hockey player been drunk, calling a political leader in New Jersey after being fired for lying about a hockey player's drunkard state gets you a plum job.
So for all of you who decide what goes on TV news during this important May sweeps or for the barkers on radio, chew on this.
Santa Clara residents may vote to raise taxes for a football stadium which goes totally against the TV "news" chatter shows and the carnival barkers of talk radio's narrative along with tabloid newspapers.
Santa Clara residents may say yes to spending at least $114 million on the project and possibly be on the hook for as much as $444 million on June 8 for the stadium that may house not only the San Francisco 49ers but the Oakland Raiders as well. The reason why Santa Clara voters may say yes may have more to do with a perception that the San Francisco Giants ownership and Major League Baseball are playing a heavy handed role (along with San Francisco officials) in keeping Oakland A's owner from setting up shop in San Jose and that this is their way of getting even.
The National Football League would like both the 49ers and Raiders to share the facility in much the same way as the New York Giants and Jets each put a significant amount of dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars, into the new Meadowlands football facility which recently opened.
The cash strapped state of New Jersey, whose governor Chris Christie is sparring with teachers and stadiums over draconian cuts in education, is providing hundreds of millions of dollars to pay for infrastructure and providing tax breaks and incentives for the two teams.
In Santa Clara, only the 49ers ownership, the York family, is investing in the facility and based on track records in Vancouver and Minneapolis, that might not be the wisest decision the Yorks ever made if the stadium referendum does pass. The original owners of the Minnesota Timber Wolves, Harvey Ratner and Marvin Wolfenson, could not swing buying an National Basketball Association expansion team for $32.5 million in 1987 and then funding an arena in Minneapolis that had a corporate sponsor's name attached to the building. By 1994, Ratner and Wolfenson had enough and sold the team to a group led by boxing promoter Bob Arum who wanted to move the team to New Orleans.
The NBA blocked the move as league officials felt that moving from the bigger Twin-Cities market to the Crescent City was a step backwards. Eventually the state legislature worked out a deal that allowed Minneapolis to take over the building and the Timber Wolves franchise was sold to a local businessman who kept the team in Minneapolis.
There is a similar tale of woe that also enveloped an NBA owner. Arthur Griffiths owned a National Hockey League team in Vancouver in the 1990s. Griffiths looked at how the economics of the NHL was changing and decided to finance a new arena for his Canucks. The NBA was thinking about expanding in 1995 with Toronto as a primary target but Griffiths was planning a new building and seemed willing to give NBA owners about $100 million in exchange for an NBA expansion team in Vancouver. The NBA liked Vancouver's dynamics even though the Canadian dollar was faltering compared to the US greenback. The NBA had identified Hong Kong as a major non-American supporter of the league and with many Hong Kong residents moving to the Vancouver area in the anticipation of China taking over the area; the NBA figured Vancouver would be a strong 21st century franchise.
It did not work out for Griffiths who was saddled by too many bills. The NBA expansion fee along with the $160 million price tag, that in Canadian dollars, for the arena. Griffiths sold the Canucks, the NBA expansion team, the Grizzlies, and the arena. The NBA team would eventually move to Memphis where it is a financial liability.
The Yorks may not have the money to run a football team and build a stadium that could cost as much as $937 million particularly if the corporate naming rights train runs through Santa Clara and leaves the Yorks looking for a corporate naming rights partner like Jerry Jones in Arlington, Texas and the woody Johnson-Mara/Tisch partnership in East Rutherford, New Jersey. Jones' Dallas Cowboys Cowboys Stadium has a gaping hole where a corporate sponsor should be hanging a shingle at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas and so far no one has stopped up and replaced Allainz as the naming rights holder at the new Giants-Jets Meadowlands Stadium.
Allainz dropped out of the running as the Meadowlands naming rights partner in September 2008 after media stories appeared in the greater New York area about Allianz’s candidacy as a stadium sponsor. These stories covered the naming rights talks and in that context also addressed Allianz history as a major German company during the Nazi era. After the stories appeared, The Meadowlands Stadium Company decided not to pursue further talks thereafter bowing to pressure from various groups who had highlighted Allainz's activities with the Nazi Government in Germany.
There were reports that Allainz was willing to pay the Giants/Jets ownership somewhere between $25 and 30 annually to put the company name on the stadium.
The Yorks might be able to defer some of the stadium's annual costs if they can persuade Al Davis and the Oakland Raiders to join them if the stadium is built. So far the Yorks intend to go it on their own and Davis is saying nothing. But clearly a corporate sponsor will help. The go it alone route is something Ed Roski in Los Angeles or, more precisely, in the City of Industry is not an avenue he would like to pursue. Roski would like to attract an NFL owner to move to his proposed stadium to share in a real estate deal to make a stadium work.
It will be a tough road to hoe if the York family decides to build the stadium with no help. But Santa Clara residents seem willing to be York's partner and that doesn't fit the media narrative of no more taxes but that may not be "Good TV" or "Good radio" which is what journalism is all about these days.
Evan Weiner is an author, radio-TV commentator and lecturer on "The Politics of Sports Business" and can be reached for speaking engagements at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
By Evan Weiner
May 2, 2010
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-3926-Business-of-Sports-Examiner~y2010m5d2-Could-Santa-Clara-voters-say-yes-to-raising-taxes-for-a-football-stadium
(New York, N. Y.) -- In this day and age of Tea Baggers or the Coffee Party and other rabble rousers jumping up and down and shouting to provide TV and radio producers a chance of showing "Good TV" or providing "Good radio", people in Santa Clara, California may be leaning to saying yes to a proposal that would ultimately provide a partially publicly financed stadium for the San Francisco 49ers.
Stadium stories generally produce "good TV", sound bites that inflame, and that ultimately leads to radio pillaging. It is just how it works because "Good TV" or "Good radio" brings in advertising revenue and may have nothing at all to do with the merits of a story. We expect more from a ten year old than we do from a radio personality like oh say New York's WFAN radio's Evan Roberts who repeatedly called Philadelphia Phillies fans "animals." A ten year old acting up in school is marched to the Principal's office and reprimanded. In radio lying about a hockey player been drunk, calling a political leader in New Jersey after being fired for lying about a hockey player's drunkard state gets you a plum job.
So for all of you who decide what goes on TV news during this important May sweeps or for the barkers on radio, chew on this.
Santa Clara residents may vote to raise taxes for a football stadium which goes totally against the TV "news" chatter shows and the carnival barkers of talk radio's narrative along with tabloid newspapers.
Santa Clara residents may say yes to spending at least $114 million on the project and possibly be on the hook for as much as $444 million on June 8 for the stadium that may house not only the San Francisco 49ers but the Oakland Raiders as well. The reason why Santa Clara voters may say yes may have more to do with a perception that the San Francisco Giants ownership and Major League Baseball are playing a heavy handed role (along with San Francisco officials) in keeping Oakland A's owner from setting up shop in San Jose and that this is their way of getting even.
The National Football League would like both the 49ers and Raiders to share the facility in much the same way as the New York Giants and Jets each put a significant amount of dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars, into the new Meadowlands football facility which recently opened.
The cash strapped state of New Jersey, whose governor Chris Christie is sparring with teachers and stadiums over draconian cuts in education, is providing hundreds of millions of dollars to pay for infrastructure and providing tax breaks and incentives for the two teams.
In Santa Clara, only the 49ers ownership, the York family, is investing in the facility and based on track records in Vancouver and Minneapolis, that might not be the wisest decision the Yorks ever made if the stadium referendum does pass. The original owners of the Minnesota Timber Wolves, Harvey Ratner and Marvin Wolfenson, could not swing buying an National Basketball Association expansion team for $32.5 million in 1987 and then funding an arena in Minneapolis that had a corporate sponsor's name attached to the building. By 1994, Ratner and Wolfenson had enough and sold the team to a group led by boxing promoter Bob Arum who wanted to move the team to New Orleans.
The NBA blocked the move as league officials felt that moving from the bigger Twin-Cities market to the Crescent City was a step backwards. Eventually the state legislature worked out a deal that allowed Minneapolis to take over the building and the Timber Wolves franchise was sold to a local businessman who kept the team in Minneapolis.
There is a similar tale of woe that also enveloped an NBA owner. Arthur Griffiths owned a National Hockey League team in Vancouver in the 1990s. Griffiths looked at how the economics of the NHL was changing and decided to finance a new arena for his Canucks. The NBA was thinking about expanding in 1995 with Toronto as a primary target but Griffiths was planning a new building and seemed willing to give NBA owners about $100 million in exchange for an NBA expansion team in Vancouver. The NBA liked Vancouver's dynamics even though the Canadian dollar was faltering compared to the US greenback. The NBA had identified Hong Kong as a major non-American supporter of the league and with many Hong Kong residents moving to the Vancouver area in the anticipation of China taking over the area; the NBA figured Vancouver would be a strong 21st century franchise.
It did not work out for Griffiths who was saddled by too many bills. The NBA expansion fee along with the $160 million price tag, that in Canadian dollars, for the arena. Griffiths sold the Canucks, the NBA expansion team, the Grizzlies, and the arena. The NBA team would eventually move to Memphis where it is a financial liability.
The Yorks may not have the money to run a football team and build a stadium that could cost as much as $937 million particularly if the corporate naming rights train runs through Santa Clara and leaves the Yorks looking for a corporate naming rights partner like Jerry Jones in Arlington, Texas and the woody Johnson-Mara/Tisch partnership in East Rutherford, New Jersey. Jones' Dallas Cowboys Cowboys Stadium has a gaping hole where a corporate sponsor should be hanging a shingle at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas and so far no one has stopped up and replaced Allainz as the naming rights holder at the new Giants-Jets Meadowlands Stadium.
Allainz dropped out of the running as the Meadowlands naming rights partner in September 2008 after media stories appeared in the greater New York area about Allianz’s candidacy as a stadium sponsor. These stories covered the naming rights talks and in that context also addressed Allianz history as a major German company during the Nazi era. After the stories appeared, The Meadowlands Stadium Company decided not to pursue further talks thereafter bowing to pressure from various groups who had highlighted Allainz's activities with the Nazi Government in Germany.
There were reports that Allainz was willing to pay the Giants/Jets ownership somewhere between $25 and 30 annually to put the company name on the stadium.
The Yorks might be able to defer some of the stadium's annual costs if they can persuade Al Davis and the Oakland Raiders to join them if the stadium is built. So far the Yorks intend to go it on their own and Davis is saying nothing. But clearly a corporate sponsor will help. The go it alone route is something Ed Roski in Los Angeles or, more precisely, in the City of Industry is not an avenue he would like to pursue. Roski would like to attract an NFL owner to move to his proposed stadium to share in a real estate deal to make a stadium work.
It will be a tough road to hoe if the York family decides to build the stadium with no help. But Santa Clara residents seem willing to be York's partner and that doesn't fit the media narrative of no more taxes but that may not be "Good TV" or "Good radio" which is what journalism is all about these days.
Evan Weiner is an author, radio-TV commentator and lecturer on "The Politics of Sports Business" and can be reached for speaking engagements at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
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