It’s only a matter of time before people find better things to do with their time than sycophancy for their favorite teams.

- Kevin

http://www.bucpower.com/lockout1502.html

Virtually all 18-game schedule proposals include a second “bye,” or idle week during the season, for each team. This means that the actual number of weeks of regular-season play increases by three, not two, from the present 17 weeks to 20.

Currently, the Super Bowl is played on the first Sunday in February. This date would be moved two weeks later if the 18-game schedule is adopted, meaning that the game would henceforth be played on the third Sunday in February instead (with the present idle week between the semifinal, or conference championship, round and the Super Bowl itself being abolished). The day after this new Super Bowl date is a national holiday, known colloquially as Presidents’ Day, upon which virtually all government offices – federal, state and local – and large businesses, are closed. Because of the many parties, etc. that are typically held on the day of the Super Bowl, the following day has far and away the highest worker absentee rate of any workday in the entire year; having this day fall on a national holiday renders this moot and saves governments and businesses massive amounts of money in terms of lost productivity, sick pay and overtime pay (the latter to cover work left unperformed by employees who have called in “sick”).

In passing, beginning the regular season on an earlier date is not an option, considering the fact that the owners moved the start date to the week after the Labor Day (first Monday in September) weekend in 1999, citing abysmal television ratings on that weekend, which had marked the start of the regular season since 1978, when the league last transferred two games from the exhibition to the regular season (these having spanned six and 14 weeks, respectively, from 1961 through 1977).

Furthermore, in most variations of the plan at least, the 18-game schedule would come bundled with two changes designed to promote more competitive balance, or “parity,” among the teams: First, the two newly-created games are to be awarded on a weighted basis, a team that finished first in its division the season before acquiring two more games against correspondingly-placed teams from other divisions, with teams having finished second, third and fourth doing the same; and second, due to there now being only two exhibition games, coaches would have to make hasty decisions on which players to retain, and which to release; and conceptually at least, a valued player inadvertantly released would be acquired by one of the teams that finished near the bottom of the prior year’s standings, pursuant to the league’s “waiver” procedures.

Another change arising from the move is that it would give teams that get off to a poor start a better chance to overcome such a start and salvage their season: No team in NFL history that has started a season 0-3 has ever even so much as reached the conference championship round, let alone won the Super Bowl; and only one team that has opened a season with two losses, both at home, has ever qualified for the postseason in a year not disrupted by a strike (the Philadelphia Eagles did this in 2003).

So far, the owners have done little in the way of citing these factors as attractive reasons for making the move to the 18-game regular season; but just because they have not done so does not mean that these factors would not have a significant impact on the fates of many different teams, in many future seasons, should the 18-game season become a reality.

economics and free marketing are very limited tools, and babbling ideology and trying to sound very righteous shed no real light on the phenomena being analyzed. why do people consume sports? why do people consume the nfl’s product? in times of expansion, can businesses be restrained from installing excess capacity? and, how could nfl owners be policed and brought to a more equitable agreement?

Oh give me a break. Save the ethanol-bashing until after you get your agronomics degree.

I tuned into “Here Comes Mr. Jordan” the other evening, a 1941 film that was remade in 1978 as “Heaven Can Wait.”

In the original, main character Joe Pendleton was indeed a boxer. In the remake 37 years hence, main character Joe Pendleton was an NFL quarterback.

Art imitates life.

If a remake of the remake were made in 2015, it would be most interesting to see what sport Joe Pendleton played.

Lacrosse?

Parity WITHIN a sports league is not the same as parity amongs individual businesses.

Personally, I have trouble enjoying a game in which…

… only one player can use his hands.
… scoring may never occur.
… players writhe around in pain on the pitch hoping to evoke a colored card from a lone official whose job is to monitor no fewer than 22 players at one time. (I know he can solicit some assistance from the linesmen.)

However, it seems well over a billion of my fellow humans on this planet disagree. To them I say, “Enjoy, friends.”

And some six years ago I made the decision to refuse to consume any professional sports related products. I don’t by Madden, don’t buy merchandise, and I won’t even watch the Super Bowl tomorrow. Ya, it doesn’t stop them from getting my money via taxation, but at least I can sleep at night knowing I’m not perpetuating their existence voluntarily.

Sione

While on the NFL theme, we get Football as the Circus of the Dying Empire:

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175348/tomgram%3A_robert_lipsyte%2C_the_empire_bowl_is_super!/

Not much Economics, instead Politics, except for the last paragraph:

“Lest you consider this enough piling on the all-American game, labor troubles loom with a lock-out possible in March. Because the main issue is money — the teams want to share less revenue (currently 60%) with the players — the media tends to characterize the conflict as “billionaires versus millionaires.” Actually, most owners are rich from other businesses and would not have been allowed into the NFL unless they were financially secure, while few players survive more than about three years in the league. The owners also want to increase production (adding two games to the regular season) without taking more responsibility for health-care costs.

If any of this sounds depressingly like real life, how could you not watch what might be the last Super Bowl, the endgame of empire, the two-minute warning before America finally beats itself?”

I guess Bill Maher forgot that last years World Series teams were Texas and SF, and that in 2008 Tampa Bay went to the series, and other WS winners from the 2000′s were Arizona, the Angels (a “small budget” team at the time), and the Florida Marlins. Detroit even got to the series once.

But he does have a point in that mess somewhere. There are a lot of conservative types who gripe about “socialism” in government yet don’t seem to mind taxpayer funded football stadiums and attempts at “parity” in sports. It is a strange contradiction in voter/consumer relativity.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-maher/new-rule-football-sociali_b_815673.html

I used to worship the NFL. I’d watch those glorified “NFL Films” flicks religiously in the winter dubbed with the legendary voice of John Facenda (I still do sometimes). But all you have to do is question it. It’s amazing how many people think a big sports franchise helps a local economy.

I could happily live the rest of my life without another NFL game.

Not long ago two of the most popular sports in America were horse racing and boxing.

Good article S.M., a lot can be learned by studying the sports entertainment business.