With $9.3 billion in annual revenue, the NFL could afford to buy the Minnesota Vikings a stadium.
When Sports Illustrated crunched the numbers in March 2011, it estimated that the NFL is a $9.3 billion-a-year enterprise. That’s almost as much money as flows to Major League Baseball, the NBA, and the NHL combined.
About half of the NFL’s money comes from media rights (broadcast, cable, etc.). One company, Nike, pays the league $1.1 billion a year for sponsorship rights, and that’s only one league sponsor.
Sports Illustrated doesn’t provide a detailed breakdown of league revenue sources, but it’s clear from what the publication does provide that the league lives pretty well even before stadium revenue is considered. That in turn prompts a question: Shouldn’t the league buy stadiums for its teams? It has the money to do so, and a stadium (or at least a field) is an essential input to the football factory.
In a sidebar to its article, SI even offers up some examples of privately financed stadiums. It reports that the New Meadowlands stadium (New York Jets, New York Giants), which cost $1.6 billion, was 100 percent financed by private money. The same for Gillette Stadium (New England Patriots).
A quick analysis of the list suggests that the larger the city, the larger the private-sector contribution. (For example, Philadelphia: 65 percent; Indianapolis, 13 percent.) That makes sense; there’s more “local” money available for sponsorship and naming rights as the metropolitan area gets bigger. But the giants (and Giants) have to play small market teams in Indianapolis and Minneapolis, so it’s reasonable to argue that the league ought to finance stadiums to support all teams.
You are making the assumption that small market teams need to exist for the league to function. In terms of TV market, the Vikings have the #15 spot at 1.7 million tv households, the Colts are in the #26 spot with 1.1 million tv households. So a big market team is one with a tv household number of over 2 million and a small market would be under 1 million. The Vikings can’t claim small market. If you were to add in the North Dakota markets of Fargo and Bismark, the Vikings would be a large market team. The Vikings ownership is offering to pay for 44% of the cost of a new stadium. Why should the NFL finance a team that in all reality is a large market team? The sticking point for a new stadium seems to be the cost, not of the stadium and field; but of the cost to upgrade roads and other items that do not benefit the NFL. The State of Minnesota should pay for a new stadium, and the roads to and from, because they built a new stadium for the Gophers, and last time I checked… you cant up and move the University of Minnesota or its football team to another state.