Money doesn’t buy everything, especially wins in the NFL.
Parity is again the major topic this season, and for good reason: After 14 weeks, only four of the 12 playoffs spots have been claimed, and several divisions are unlikely to be decided until the last weekend.
Off the field, the NFL is witnessing financial parity of sorts this year. The Dallas Cowboys and the Washington Redskins, the league’s two most valuable franchises, have losing records, yet the Atlanta Falcons, one of the least valuable, are tied for the best record. The 16 most valuable franchises as ranked by Forbes have won a combined 117 matches through 14 games, just 10 more than the bottom 16 teams in the league.
The competitive balance up and down the valuation chart reflects not just the drawing power of the NFL, but the league’s lucrative television contracts, licensing contracts and other revenue that is shared evenly among its 32 teams. The sharing of revenue keeps the financial divide between larger-market teams like the Giants and smaller-market teams like the Jacksonville Jaguars from exploding, as it has in baseball.
Like hockey and basketball, the NFL also has a salary cap (though not this year because the league and players let their cap run out as they negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement), which prevents teams from spending far more on player payrolls than others the way, say, the Yankees outspend the Kansas City Royals in baseball. A deep pool of talented collegiate players makes it possible for weaker, smaller market teams to rebuild relatively quickly.
“On any given Sunday, one team can beat another because of the television money that ensures they can compete,” said Scott Minto, the director of the sports business MBA program at San Diego State University. “The Redskins have been one of the five most valuable teams for a long time, but I can’t remember the last time they were in the Super Bowl. Atlanta might win the Super Bowl this year and not move up in valuation rankings.”
Among the four major leagues, the NFL and the NBA have the most financial parity. Based on Forbes’ valuations, the wealthiest team in these leagues is worth only about 2.5 times that of the least valuable franchise. In the NHL, the Toronto Maple Leafs are worth 3.8 times that of the Phoenix Coyotes, while in baseball, the Yankees are worth 5.7 times that of the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Teams in smaller markets or with limited payrolls like the San Antonio Spurs or the Florida Marlins occasionally bubble to the top and break up the long line of powerful franchises that dominate in these leagues. The NFL, though, is filled with teams that, regardless of their market, can rebound a year or two after being left for dead, and vice versa. The Cowboys, who are worth US$1.8 billion according to Forbes, have won only five games this year after winning 11 games and their division last season. The Houston Texans and the Carolina Panthers, ranked fifth and 12th in the Forbes survey, are having terrible seasons after finishing strongly last year.
At the same time, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (13th most valuable), the Oakland Raiders (31st) and the Jacksonville Jaguars (32nd and last on the survey) have had surprisingly competitive seasons after winning a combined 15 games last season. Instead of spending heavily on free agents, they have used the college draft to sign young players.
“In baseball, there seems to be a direct correlation between what you spend on free agents and the quality of your players,” said Maury Brown, the president of the Business of Sports, a series of Web sites devoted to sports business research. “Of all the major sports, the draft means the most in football.”
Still, wealthy clubs can make plenty of money even when they repeatedly fail to make the playoffs.
The Redskins, for instance, earned US$103.7 million in operating income last year, according to Forbes. They can thrive financially because they play in a stadium that lets them capture relatively large amounts of money through the sale of suites, private seat licenses, parking, naming rights and sponsorships.
Indeed, eight out of the 10 most valuable teams on the Forbes survey play in stadiums opened or refurbished in the past decade. The average age of the stadiums of the 10 least valuable franchises is 22 years old. Not surprisingly, the owners of the San Diego Chargers (24th most valuable), the Falcons (26th) and the Minnesota Vikings (30th) are clamoring for new stadiums.
“It really boils down to what kind of stadium you play in,” said David Carter, who teaches sports business at the University of Southern California and wrote Money Games, a book about sports and entertainment.
“Owners are all about revenue streams that they don’t have to share” with the other teams, he said.
Of course, parity in the NFL is partly driven by chance. With so few regular-season games, even a handful of injuries to key players or a couple of muffed plays can vault an also-ran into first place or plunge a front-runner into last place. Over the course of baseball, basketball and hockey seasons, teams can compensate for these mishaps.
Yet this year’s roster of NFL playoff teams has shown once again that money is no guarantee of success on the field.
BOUNCE BACK: Curry scored 46 points in the Warriors’ victory over the Spurs, after ‘everybody stepped up’ following Tuesday’s blowout loss to Oklahoma City Nikola Jokic scoring 50 or more points had never been enough for the Denver Nuggets to win — until now. Jokic on Wednesday night tied the highest-scoring performance in the NBA this season with 55 points, as the Nuggets beat the Los Angeles Clippers 130-116 for their sixth straight victory. The Nuggets were 0-4 in his previous 50-point outbursts. “It’s a good feeling,” the three-time NBA Most Valuable Player said. He equaled Oklahoma City Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who had 55 in a double-overtime game at the Indiana Pacers on Oct. 23. Jokic has been on a roll during Denver’s winning streak. He is the
TIGHT GAME: The Detroit Pistons, the NBA’s second-best team, barely outlasted the Washington Wizards, who fell to an NBA-worst 1-10 with their ninth consecutive loss Cade Cunningham’s triple double, Daniss Jenkins’ three-pointer at the buzzer and Javonte Green’s overtime dunk lifted Detroit past Washington 137-135 on Monday, stretching the Pistons’ win streak to seven games. In an unexpected thriller, the NBA’s second-best team barely outlasted a Wizards club that fell to an NBA-worst 1-10 with their ninth consecutive loss. “We knew how big this game was for us,” Jenkins said. “We wasn’t going to let nothing stop us from getting this W.” Cunningham made 14-of-45 shots and 16-of-18 free throws for a career-high 46 points, and added 12 rebounds, 11 assists, five steals and two
The tri-nation Twenty20 international series featuring hosts Pakistan, as well as Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe, is to be played entirely in Rawalpindi from Tuesday next week, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) said yesterday, after this week’s suicide bombing in the capital, Islamabad. The change came after at least eight Sri Lankan players asked to leave over security fears following Tuesday’s bombing that killed 12 people and wounded 27. Their country’s cricket board issued a stern directive to the team to stay put or face consequences. Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) said the decision to stay was taken after “close consultations” with hosts Pakistan who
LIKE FINE WINE: Thirty-eight-year-old Djokovic won his 101st title of his career in Athens, becoming the oldest tournament winner since Ken Roswell, 44, in 1977 Elena Rybakina on Saturday clinched her biggest title since Wimbledon in 2022, defeating world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka 6-3, 7-6 (7/0) at the WTA Finals in Riyadh. The world No. 6 put on yet another serving masterclass and was at her returning best as she became the first Kazakh and the first player representing an Asian country to lift the WTA Finals singles trophy. Having gone 3-0 in round-robin play, Rybakina earned a record US$5.235 million and would finish the year ranked No. 5 in the world. “It’s been an incredible week, I honestly didn’t expect any result, and to go so far,
RSS