League Owners Have an Itch for Scratch Games
Fair warning, strong opinions below.
Along with others on the new business ventures committee Jets owner Woody Johnson has been trying to champion in the NFL for some time now, the use of team logos and likenesses in state lotteries for a few years, and at long last at the most recent set of owners’ meetings, Johnson’s fellow owners have agreed on the matter of co-opting state lotteries as a means of revenue generation. With the recent approval, teams like the Patriots and Redskins already have their deals in place with state lotteries and according to New York papers, the Jets and Giants aren’t far behind.
What’s funny is why the change of mind in the league ownership? Although Johnson has faced stiff resistance in the past few years on the matter, amazingly Woody’s master orations have finally won his peers. My guess on Woody’s thesis statement? “C’mon guys, it’s an easy way to keep the chopper fueled in a bad market.”
Roger Goodell who’s spoken on the subject was quoted in the Daily News, putting a ridiculous spin on this subject, while balancing the league’s venom for the state of Delaware’s proposed legalization of NFL betting, emphasis is mine.
The league is against betting on its games and is currently fighting Delaware’s plans to legalize gambling on games. “The lottery is something completely different,” one NFL source said. “It is not related to the outcome of games. We don’t want there to be any correlation to the outcome of games and anything the team is doing. There is a significant difference between betting on the outcome of games and buying lottery tickets.”
Lotteries are designed to raise money for state-funded ventures, primarily education. Presumably having scratch-off games featuring NFL team logos will increase the popularity and revenue of the games. Generally, lottery deals are done one year at a time. The Mets and Yankees each have had games in the New York state lottery with a Subway Series instant game ticket.
“We are going to implement a policy that will allow clubs to engage with their local lotteries, the state lotteries, with certain very important parameters,” commissioner Roger Goodell said last week. “It would not be based on the outcome of games. This would purely be scratch off and chance games. They are not in any way connected to the outcome of our games. That is a critical feature for us. We do think it is responsive to the pressures that states are feeling right now to help meet some of those budget shortfalls. What we can do with the states and our clubs is to try to create some additional revenue. It has been effective in other sports and it is something that is a reasonable policy.“
How very noble of the league. I understand why the league would want to avoid direct causal relationships between any lottery and the game, but to dress it up as a cavalier way to help out states with their budget shortfalls is an absolute joke.
I love gambling, don’t get me wrong, and the lottery is a sticky subject to many, but at it’s base, it’s a regressive tax … meaning it’s a tax on the poor, something my collegiate statistics professor beat into my brains repeatedly.
Rich and educated people are far less likely to play the lottery because they either (A) don’t need to win, or are (B) smart enough to know the odds of them winning are worse than getting hit with an errant airplane wing. Sadly, dollar for dollar your odds are better off dealing with a illegal dishonest bookie than the state lottery. So the league is limiting your chances at winning by fighting the passage of legal betting on the NFL in Delaware and at the same time, up for a regressive tax across the nation.
So while the NFL loves to foster the cuddly image of themselves as United Way posterboys, quick to help the underpriveleged, this is their newest business venture.
I just don’t see how this isn’t a direct action against that very image … yet no one seems to care. At it’s base, this is a move that very smart and very rich old men saw as a way to fill their coffers (even more than before) and used the excuse of a down economy and rolling up their sleeves to helping out states to justify. Maybe instead of lotteries, they can pay back all the money they’ve stole from taxpayers for building unecessary new stadiums with their money … would that help?
23 Responses to League Owners Have an Itch for Scratch Games
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mole57 says:
The justification and spin are dishonest. If they really want to help the states to raise money, then the teams should either offer up the logo for free, or donate back any of the gains they’d get. Think that will ever happen?
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DaveTN says:
Can you really put your logo on lottery tickets and still hold gambling at arms length? I’m not sure the NFL can see past the dollar signs.
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spentmiles says:
Gambling and the NFL? Unpossible.
What’s the point spread on the Jets-Texans, by the way?
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greene says:
i think its way too early to tell the spread. some place might have a crude number up but whatever it is now, 99% chance its gonna chance by september.
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The NFL is the National Teflon League when it comes to media scrutiny of off-the-field issues. Whether it’s steroids, taking care of retired players, or their total hypocrisy about gambling, the NFL gets away with spouting totally nonsensical logic like no other league out there.
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miketaliaferro says:
Good report, Bassett.
There is one huge, overriding moral and ethical factor here that rises above all others that we must keep clearly in mind as we discuss gambling’s coming anywhere near the NFL — with the lotteries, the owners get a cut of the action; through the bookies (or Delaware regulation), they don’t. Simple.
Umm, this may have more to do with the hit that the J&J stock price — and Woody’s subsequent shrinking inheritance — have taken this year than any desire to nobly assist NFL states or DC.
One other factor (My! That Woody is a clever guy!) — with this approach, an owner (gee, like Woody…) can expand the squeezing of his fan base for extra coin. There is only a potential base of approx. 78,000 rubes he can shake down for that obscene “license” fee for the “right” to buy a ticket to his games. But, ultimately, that’s too confining for your standard 12th-generation capitalist heir. But with a Lottery…, hey now you can probe deeply into the pockets of those MILLIONS of other rubes who sit on the couch watching every Sunday because they’re too poor to go to your taxpayer-financed stadium.
Woody (“They call me, MISTER Q-Tip!”) Johnson — leader of men.
Genius! Genius, I say!
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Crazy Jets Fan!!! says:
Leon Washington is back and on the field at today’s OTAs!!!
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sjfalcon2001 says:
Crazy Jets fan is right, Leon’s back in camp. here’s the link:
http://www.newyorkjets.com/blog/posts/1069-leon-washington-practicing-at-today-s-ota
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Vinny Interceptaverde says:
Basset, I always thought you were a very smart guy, but the the reference to Austrian Economics puts you over the top. Congradulations, in the world of blogging that was equivalent to throwing 5 TD’s in a football game.
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Cabras says:
This league is working really hard to hang itself, alienating the fans with psl’s and absurd ticket prices, flex scheduling which screws ticket holders, more and more late starting games (thurs, sat, sun ,mon), pay to watch TV games, and then the criminal element which as one reader said the teflon effect. I love football, but I wonder how long the fans can continue to be loyal to their teams.
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i dont think the league is hanging itself, its trying to cash in on something thats going more and more prime time.
yea, it sucks for the loyal fans who stuck around but the fact of the matter is, why should they sell all their tickets for $100 when they can sell their tickets for double that price. we can say they might not be able to fill seats, but they only need to cover half the seats to cover the difference.
as long as people are willing to pay, they should up the price – supply and demand 101.
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Harlan Lachman says:
Not completely off topic, but this is why the NFLPA wants a clean examination of teams’ revenues. While the teams want access to multiple cash streams, they want to keep them secret and outside the existing revenue sharing agreement.
When one looks at one franchises are worth (versus what folks paid for them), the value of TV deals, lottery deals, stadium deals, sales of merchandise, etc., anyone concerned about the owners (other than they and their families) has a screw or three loose.
I would very much like something like the current system to be agreed to before the end of this season so that the NFL doesn’t become a joke like the NHL or repeats the lock out and replacement players fiasco of the past.
OTOH, although I think there is little chance we win a SB this year, I hope we do because there may be no league pretty soon.
h
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Vinny, thanks! I do read things other than just jets camp reports, just not that many of them. :)
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Greene,
They make money w/concessions, their goal is to sell out the stadium, so they can sell beer, water and food
No argument that they are trying to cash in, but the hypocrisy concerning the gambling is a joke. -
Cabras, yea, but i was just using those numbers as crude (and a very bad) example. However, the seats don’t seem to be emptying at all with the increase in ticket prices. Yea, the ticket prices are sometimes ridiculous but we can’t tell them to put a ceiling on the prices as long as there are people willing to pay. And with only 16 games a season, can’t blame people for wanting to drop the $$$ to watch a game.
And I wasn’t really referring to the gambling much, I was more responding to when you said about absurd ticket prices.
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hank/naples says:
“…… Jets owner Woody Johnson has been trying to champion in the NFL for some time now,…..”
This billionaire owner. Always looking to get richer (now off the poor !!) while he lays-off his employees for two weeks WITHOUT pay by pinching pennies !!
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Greene,
The Giants went through a 140,000 person waiting list to try to sell “premium” tickets (and they actually win Super Bowls on occasion). The Jets do not have 140,000 people “waiting” to buy tickets.
There will not be a ceiling on tickets once you buy a PSL you become Woody’s bitch and “have” to pay whatever price they put on the ticket or you lose your PSL money with no refund.
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you might not like to pay those ridiculous amounts for the tickets, but woody knows there are plenty of others that will.
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i just dont understand why people get mad at people for trying to make money. yea, he’s rich but when does being rich you dont wanna try to maximize profit?
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SackDance99 says:
I found it interesting that the Mets and Yankess have had similar lottery deals and the Skins and Pats have just signed them up. I guess it’s easy to bash Woody because he won the birth lottery and is a billionaire. But, the Skins and Pats spend right up to the salary cap, pay their coaches top dollar, and have state-of-the-art training facilities. The Jets do the same thing.
Nobody likes PSLs, but it’s amazing that nobody mentions that the Giants have PSLs for the entire new stadium, while the Jets have 28,000 non-PSL seats in the upper level.
Instead of looking at Woody as greedy, why don’t you look at it as an incredible competitive advantage for the Jets (like the Mets and Yanks) to have alternate sources of revenue. We all want the Jets to be considered as a premier organization, well that costs money. If Woody didn’t use all that money to try to improve the team and the fan experience, then I’d complain. But, he’s shown that he’s more than willing to spend on this team. With all these outside football sources of revenue, the Jets are more-or-less guaranteed of making money…which could be critical if the CBA gets thrown out and the Jets decide to “buy” a Super Bowl.
I love the hip-hop saying “Don’t hate the playa, hate the game.” Woody is showing that, unlike the sainted Mr. Hess, he knows how to play the game. As a long-time Jets fan, I think those who constantly “hate” on Woody have no sense of history. He’s been, by far, the best owner since Werblin (who the sainted Mr. Hess, along with other multi-millionaires, forced out leading to 40 years of darkness). Let’s hope Woody has similar success to Werblin, at least Woody won’t have to worry about “money-men” meddling with the team.
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Greene,
No problem with capitalism, I have a problem with the NFL turning the league into WWF, that’s all, by the way, the Jets would have a very tough time selling 80,000 psl’s, that is why they are holding the upper deck w/no psl’s. It is unfortunately a NYG town, and as I said the giants went through 140,000 person list, the Jets had 1/2 that .
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StvDoe says:
I’ve always been a firm believer that lotteries tax the poor, so it’s nice to see some confirmation. (The original rationalization that the proceeds would benefit education have turned out to be an outright lie.)
There’s no doubt that this move flies in the face of the NFL’s supposed aversion to gambling.
They’ve always contended that gambling poses a threat to the integrity of the game. This rationale actually made sense in the old days. When professional sports was peopled with indentured servants, there was a real risk that gamblers could “get to” players. (Black Sox anyone?) This may have been true even up until the ’60s.
But in modern pro sports with it’s multi million dollar contracts what player is going to be offered a bribe large enough to get him to “throw” a game, or “fudge” the spread?
And now with on-line bookies the idea of limiting gambling by stopping Delaware from legalizing it is a monstrous joke.
As I write this I’m two clicks away from betting ANY sport ANYWHERE. I can bet race tracks all over the world! You want rugby action? No problem. There’s 50 “prop bets” on the NBA finals. It’s unending.
What amazes me is that the NFL is still trying to stop it.
They can’t. Our GOVERMENT can’t. They’ve tried. They’ve failed. As a matter of fact we’re something of an internationl joke because of it. All the rest of the “modern” nations have embraced it to get their cut. But America, (with it’s puritan roots), still tries to put it’s finger in the dike while the water pours over the top of the wall.It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.-
Eh, the regressive tax part is irrelevant in my opinion. It is a business venture 110%. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it, but I also don’t think there’s anything ‘right’ with it. It just is what it is, and that’s it.