NFL Speak - The Rough House Version

[Palehorse]

OT here we come. . . 

[Palehorse]

DirtyBirds shit the bed and let the cheaters win. . . 

[Palehorse]

I saw an interview with the Colts news GM, and my first impression is I like the guy.He seems to be a focused and genuine individual that wants to put a competitive and winning team on the field. I just hope the pill head lets him do it.

If he does, perhaps we will see the Colts in the big show by 2020. . .

[Palehorse]

NFL has okayed the Raiders moving to Las Vegas. . . 

How appropriate. . . 

[Locutus]

NFL has okayed the Raiders moving to Las Vegas. . . 

How appropriate. . . 

How can anyone, even taxpayers in a destination city, support public subsidies for a bunch of billionaires looking to make more money at their collective expense? 

It's beyond mind-boggling. 

[Palehorse]

How can anyone, even taxpayers in a destination city, support public subsidies for a bunch of billionaires looking to make more money at their collective expense. 

It's beyond mind-boggling.

As our average wage continues to decline we will see entities like the NFL on the skids; perhaps a lot sooner than anyone realizes.

Ticket prices are already nearly out of reach for blue collar workers, and white collar workers are being increasingly taxed by the outlay of cash just to see them play. Their business model increasingly is moving televised games to league owned cable networks, meaning fans now cannot even watch from the comfort of their homes without paying even more for their cable service.

I think this past season's drop in viewers is just the tip of the ice burgh, with attendance at stadiums and viewers both dropping even more this coming fall.

Baseball will be next along with basketball. . . They're all pricing themselves right out of their fan bases. And the franchise owners are sitting back and laughing because they won't be on the hook for their palatial stadium complexes. . . 

[Locutus]

But that's not a smart business model, correct?

The league has already prevented local fans from watching their local teams on TV when those games don't sell out via blackouts.  What happens to their business model once they've sucked all of the money they can out of the little guy?

Billionaires aren't going to make more billions out of each other.  They need the upward redistribution of wealth (and I'm not looking to introduce politics into this NFL thread) to continue to increase their wealth.

I'm not seeing too much of a logical path forward, but maybe I'm naive. 

[Palehorse]

But that's not a smart business model, correct?

The league has already prevented local fans from watching their local teams on TV when those games don't sell out via blackouts.  What happens to their business model once they've sucked all of the money they can out of the little guy?

Billionaires aren't going to make more billions out of each other.  They need the upward redistribution of wealth (and I'm not looking to introduce politics into this NFL thread) to continue to increase their wealth.

I'm not seeing too much of a logical path forward, but maybe I'm naive.

Exactly. They are committing suicide with their business model.

The league itself operates tax free and is using strong arm tactics to force the citizens in and around franchise cities to pay for their palatial stadiums via taxation, and charging an arm and a leg to get into them to see them. And the ironic thing is each and every ticket has the "stadium tax" imposed upon it as well. Moreover, in many of the cases the team residing in the tax-payer funded venues nets 100% of the revenues generated by the venue; including non-sporting related events, parking, concessions, etc. (Which are all subject to the sports tax).

In Indianapolis and Houston, when you rent a car or hotel room, your bill includes the "sports tax". . . It is utterly idiotic that taxpayers are forced to subsidize businesses owned by multi- millionaires and billionaires; especially when said business is not essential to the day to day lives of those living and working in those cities. It is merely entertainment, bottom line.

The league itself does its very best to imply there is some kind of prestige and honor connected with having a professional team residing in their city, which is horse crap. They are a parasite upon the revenue streams of the cities within which they reside and the taxpayers that live there.

An argument can be made that the teams generate residual revenue via the fact that many of the teams fans patronize the businesses around the stadium before and after the games, but what happens when the fans cannot afford to go to these games? What happens when their apathy over being priced out and blacked out from even watching from home drives attendance and revenues into a deep dive?

Why, they just call the moving company and move to another city where they start the whole shell game anew. . .  (How many times have the Raiders moved in the last 20 years?)

The NHL has suffered through that business model itself, with Chicago's team blacking out games and then televising them on cable via pay-per-view for example. At the same time ticket prices began skyrocketing, and this was long before the team had improved to the point wherein they began actually getting to the Stanley Cup Finals. (They did move to a new Stadium which they share with the Bulls, and subsidized construction via selling the name of the place to United). But when attendance took a deep dive, they didn't have the luxury of calling the movers; they own the stadium and there aren't a wealth of cities in the US that are interested in having an NHL team move to their city. In fact, a lot of them couldn't care less about hockey-professional or not.

That forced them to adopt a business model that was far more fan friendly, and to limit pay-per-view events to playoff games within the home venue. And the fans came back in droves. Now that they've won a few Stanley Cups within the same decade, prices are starting to spike again though; but they've built up a solid number of season ticket holders and they are hoping they will stay aboard, and that they can continue to compete in order to keep them.

The NFL doesn't give a damn about its fan base, nor the citizens of the cities within which they reside. They just want them to pay through the nose, and when they don't they move. . .  And every year they spend the entire off-season trying to come up with new ways to wring out another 10-50 million out of the fans in each city within which they reside.

[Palehorse]

Here's an interesting article on the aftermath of the Rams, Raiders, Chargers aftermath and the ramifications to the taxpayers of those cities:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/2017/03/31/relocation-oakland-raiders-san-diego-chargers-st-louis-rams/99848210/

They've basically saddled the taxpayers with a combined 220 million in debt and the issue of what to do with the empty facilities. . . 

Oakland, St. Louis and San Diego all share a heavy burden these days -- and it's not just the grief of recently losing their NFL teams to other cities.

They also have about $220 million in combined public debt stemming from stadium and facilities construction for those same cut-and-run Raiders, Rams and Chargers. Governments for each market effectively decided to throw public money at them in the 1990s, hoping to lure or keep those teams in town with new or upgraded buildings that cost around $570 million combined.

All three teams are now gone or leaving soon. But that debt load will haunt taxpayers into the next decade. Those old stadiums also will have to be redefined – or possibly torn down – along with a sudden change of identity for each sports town . . .

[Y]

Like Drumpf voters, I can't work up any sympathy for cities who keep getting screwed by sports franchises.

It's not like no one knew what the end results could be.

I don't know about anyone else, but I am absolutely sick of sports and listening to players and coaches etc. and their stupid and illiterate talk.

[Palehorse]

Dolt's Fans have to be creating laundry problems in their shorts right now. Their QB is reporting to camp on the "physically unable to perform" list.

Their season's over before it even starts! 

Offensive line, offensive line, offensive line.

Without protection your QB is toast. . .

One would think the pill addled owner would get that by now. . . 

[Palehorse]

Well. . . Season opener validates my post in July above.

Dolts got their asses branded and handed to them . 🤣

[Henry Hawk]

Well. . . Season opener validates my post in July above.

Dolts got their asses branded and handed to them . 🤣

Time for Pagano to go!  Chuck is a good guy, but is NOT the coach the Colts need.

On the good side, the Bears looked pretty darn good yesterday!  They lost a tough one, but several bright spots.......looking forward to a decent year.

[Palehorse]

Weekend three without football quickly approaching. . . However my hiatus from viewing the sport has nothing to do with kneeling, and everything to do with the raping and pillaging of the fans by the league and its franchises. Stealing tax dollars for decades to build palaces for private enterprise. . . That and the growing number of crappy teams that have made the game like watching high school football. . . 

[Palehorse]

So I hear Aaron Rodgers got a broken collarbone today. . .

Stick a fork in the the pack. They're done!