'The Main Thing We Can Do Is Learn From This:' Art Rooney Ii Posts Letter to Steelers Fans (Tr.)

"I want to reach out to you, the members of the Steelers Nation based on what I believe is a misinterpretation about our players' intention in not taking the field for the National Anthem in Chicago."

When did class envy become your anthem?

I don’t recall you being so bitter.

Our President is a rich man, deservedly, and is proud of it, rightly so.

The rich aren’t any different from you or me, as the man said, they just have more money.

Although these days the distinguishing characteristic of so many of them seems to be fear, and spinelessness, and flight at the mere appearance of the P.C. police.

To my eyes anger at and envy of the rich veers dangerously close to leftist p.c.-ism itself.

Here's the deal ...

We're carrying out these discussions in the context of NFL teams and NFL fans (their customers), but the NFL's biggest customers are actually the TV networks that pay the NFL huge sums of money to broadcast the games. When the NFL was on network television, the fans became "indirect" customers because the deals the NFL cut with the networks were based on the numbers of fans who would tune into the games.

Once TV transitioned from network to cable, digital and web-based platforms, appealing to fans became less important than figuring out how to force those fans -- and even people who weren't fans -- to pay for the NFL's content even if they didn't want to buy it.

ESPN is a perfect example. They pay the NFL about $2 billion per year to broadcast NFL games. The latest estimate I saw was that ESPN had about 87 million subscribers through their cable deals, which is down from their 100 million peak in 2011. This means the ESPN has to collect about $2/month from each of their subscribers (regardless of whether or not these subscribers even want to watch NFL games) just to cover the cost of ESPN's NFL contract. But ESPN's subscriber numbers keep going down, and that number keeps going up.

To deal with this problem (and you can extend ESPN's problem to the other networks as well), the NFL and their network partners have figured out that improving their audience numbers is less effective (since they know they can't make the NFL any more appealing to people who aren't football fans) than forcing more subscribers to buy ESPN whether they want to or not. This is where the cable and satellite TV "bundling" comes in. ESPN can only survive because they cut deals with cable and satellite TV providers to put ESPN into the "free" packages for a fee of about $9/month. They can only do this because cable and satellite companies can force their customers -- to a certain point -- to accept whatever packages they are offered.

The NFL and its broadcast partners recognize that the single biggest threat to their existence is a Federal move to deregulate the entire industry by severing these contracts and forcing the cable and satellite TV companies to let customers choose any combination of channels without being forced to buy these "bundles."

So let's look at the numbers ... Instead of spreading its $2 billion cost to broadcast NFL games among all of its 87 million subscribers, it would have to spread it among a much smaller group who would be willing to pay to get ESPN as a stand-alone channel. ESPN might lose more than half their subscribers if everyone who wasn't forced to buy it in a package had the option of dropping them. That $2/month fee goes up a lot if that happens, since the same $2 billion will be spread among fewer subscribers.

So to make a long story short ...

The NFL's primary objective right now is to protect the power that its networks have to negotiate these deals with the cable and satellite TV companies that force customers to pay for these huge TV deals whether they want to or not.

That's why they hired former Clinton press secretary Joe Lockhart as their spokesman. And that's what companies like NBC/Comcast -- and the NFL by extension -- fear the most. They were counting on a Hillary Clinton administration to leave them alone ... while Donald Trump has made a number of statements over the years about breaking up these crony-capitalism arrangements by enforcing Federal anti-trust laws.

This is going to take some time to unpack.

The current NFL contracts with all the networks run through 2022. So, they have that money in their pockets now. ESPN already regrets that deal, because cable subscriptions are plummeting as more and more people unplug (like me - though not for any real political reasons. I’m getting the networks plus the 10 or so cable channels I actually watch, plus HBO, plus Amazon prime for less than I ever paid for cable. And I’m clearly still putting money in the pockets of all the FreeRepublic bogeymen).

So, yes, obviously, the NFL is worried about what happens after 2022, but I think they view it more as a question of what platform more than an existential threat. They are clearly preparing themselves for a world where network and even cable tv are not sources of revenue they’ve always been. At the same time, I don’t know how you really prepare for 5 years out with the speed that technology keeps changing. I mean, do you think that Hulu is the future now? Or in 2021, is Hulu a joke like Myspace? In 2021, would it shock anyone if Facebook is suddenly a content provider?

The point being, I’m not sure that Trump’s desires on cable unbundling are really the motivator here. Nor do I understand exactly what their response does to win that fight.

If there is a political message here to be won, I think we may be thinking too small. The NFL is maxed out in the US. Now with two teams in Los Angeles and a team heading to Vegas, all the trump (ha!) cards it held with cities are gone. Unless....it finally starts looking overseas again. Toronto, London, Mexico City. Those are going to be the relocation threats of the future. And a league that already sells itself as a flag-draped, militaristic, beer drinking American representation of manhood can’t double down on that by telling its black players that the president that a lot of the world sees as a white nationalist needs them to stand up and behave.

I think there are a lot of moving parts here, and like everything with the NFL, it’s going to be about money.

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