Whose Game Is It, Anyway? - buying and selling professional sports

Washington Monthly, Dec, 1999 by John Solomon

Letting the fans step up to the plate

WHEN JOHN CROTTY AND PETER Lyons learned the National Football League's New York Jets were being put up for sale this summer, they asked each other a seemingly naive question: why can't Jets fans like us buy the team ourselves?

The 30-year-old boyhood friends from New York decided to find out. They created a website, BuyTheJets.com, and launched a bid. "Upon receiving significant expressions from you, the fans, we will assemble an ownership vehicle," they wrote in their site manifesto, which included a guarantee that the team would never leave the New York area. In just two months, 11,000 people signed up and made tentative financial commitments totaling more than $20 million.

Despite the overwhelming response, however, the NFL would not even send BuyTheJets a prospectus. The league prohibits public ownership, with the one grandfathered exception of the Green Bay Packers.

Nevertheless, the idea clearly touched a nerve with a public wanting both to dream about owning a team and to send a message that fans deserve a greater voice in pro sports. The NFL's decision to summarily disregard the BuyTheJets bid was fittingly emblematic of the unsportsmanlike conduct with which the industry too often treats its passionate and loyal supporters.

In addition to recurring work stoppages, ticket prices have risen more than three times the rate of inflation over the last decade. A Major League Baseball seat cost 10% more on average this past season than it did the year before. Including the $2 sodas and $3 hot dogs, it runs a family of four $267 to attend an NBA game, up 31 percent from just four years ago, according to the Team Marketing Report.

Worse, taxpayers are routinely forced to ante up even more dough to satisfy "if you don't build it, I will leave" owner demands for new facilities. In 1999 and 2000, pro teams will be playing in new homes costing the public $9 billion. In Seattle, the Mariners' mediocre record playing in new Safeco Field pales in comparison to its performance paying for it. After a stadium ballot measure was rejected, the Mariners made a deal with the state legislature that they would pick up only $45 million of the $417 million price tag on the facility but would also pay for overruns. Safeco went $100 million over budget, and now the Mariners are refusing to pay. The team, principally owned by Nintendo of America, says it needs the public to cover the extra cost in order for it to compete financially.

Owners complain about the financial hardship involved in running pro teams. Yet, peer behind the doom and gloom talk, and it becomes clear that teams have never been more valuable. Franchise prices--both existing and expansion--continue to go up. The NFL awarded its newest expansion team to Houston this fall for $700 million, up from the $140 million entry price of just five years ago. Last month, the Cleveland Indians were sold for a record $320 million by Richard Jacobs who bought the team in 1986 for $45 million. As Yogi Berra might say, buying a sports team is such a bad deal, everyone wants one.

Where Are the Zebras?

The pro sports business does provide Americans with a unique, wildly popular and state-of-the-art product. That's why Crotty and Lyons have been able to sign up thousands of people, and why there's a line of billionaires ahead of them. That success, however, doesn't mean it should be able to play without any refereeing.

The $10 billion industry is run by almost completely unregulated monopolies. Elected officials seem to confuse governmental oversight with the view from their front row seats. In addition, pro sports' failings don't get the coverage they deserve in the press. The national sports media are frequently "league partners" or even franchise owners (Fox and TimeWarner are good examples), rendering their journalism on the subject less than objective. The local press does a good job covering the games but doesn't follow the larger off-the-field issues as thoroughly. And sports talk radio for the most part prefers to stir up public discontent rather than harness it constructively. In short, no one is playing defense for the public.

Twenty years ago, Ralph Nader tried to form a sports consumer group to organize fan interest. He failed, but now he's trying again. "It's a strange thing. It isn't anything like the car, food or drug industries. People can be angry and pay through the nose, but they'll still root for their team," he says. Nader is a perfect example--a boyhood New York Yankees fan who (believe it or not) has continued to root for the Bronx Bombers, albeit a little less rabidly--through the reign of George Steinbrenner.

Nader's effort faces huge challenges. Organizing fans--with their parochial and often opposing interests--is about as easy as trying to get fans to agree on who's better, Sosa or McGwire. Perspectives on revenue sharing and franchise relocation differ from one ballpark to the next. Growing cities desperate to have a team of their own want to make franchise movement easier; cities eager to hang on to prestige organizations obviously don't.