Quote:
Originally Posted by alnorth
Its more powerful than a mere law. Laws can be changed on a whim.
It is codified into the framework of our culture. The NFL is more inseparable from American culture than most other things. We want football, we won't accept flag football (and no we're not at flag football, the game still pretty much looks the same), and we will put up with death and danger to keep our football. Period.
|
It may not be up to us. If a judge starts handing out $50 million verdicts to "concussion victims", the business model doesn't work. I'm not saying it'll happen, but if we recognize that the NFL is a business, then businesses only operate when they're profitable.
I agree more with Cuban that the problem is going to be interest more than some catastrophic business change. However, it all ties together to some extent. The business of the NFL is....
...watering down the product to broaden their fan base, for the goal of chasing revenue increases.
...watering down the product to minimize legal risk.
...attempting to minimize the two impacts above by increasing their exposure.
...attempting to create new revenues streams such as TV products (e.g., RedZone and Sunday Ticket).
...attempting to create bigger stories by creating bigger stars via those new TV products.
It all makes sense from an MBA perspective. The thing that worries me is that marketing is driving the process now, and not the product. It's the same problem as any industry - if you have a crappy product with great marketing, people will still eventually figure out that it's a crappy product. And as Mark Cuban suggests, that actually speeds up the decline because you know have a broad awareness that it's a crappy product.