Take the example of Arizona and the MLK, Jr. holiday. I believe that the NFL was going to pull Superbowl XXX if the MLK holiday was not implemented. All the press coverage calculated the value of the Superbowl, the impact on hotels, room taxes, restaurants, etc. etc. etc. But the reality was not zero business in the absence of the Superbowl - it could have been the American Dog Breeders Association conference and tons of professional meetings, etc. etc. etc. Not necessarily as valuable as the Superbowl - but no doubt the presence of the Superbowl in a given city on a given date - deflects some discretionary travel away from that location (e.g. - I'm not going to Atlanta, are you kidding? With the superbowl there that week the place will be nuts, let's go to Phoenix instead.") Someone should be calculating the net value of event X not being held in a given city or state.
The initial coverage of the NAACP effort assumed a great deal - and vastly overstated the dollar impact. It also vastly overstated the ignorance of some people, such as those mentioned in the lead, completely unaware of the existence of the boycott in the first place. Sheesh!
What's so amusing about that is that if you worked in the NFL Headquarters in NYC you did not have MLK day off. Go figure!
In addition, this story fails to consider another related point: namely, the possibility of a resultant ANTI-boycott. The writer assumes the only effect of a boycott, if anything, is that people and business refuse to come to the state. He/she ignores the possibility that the controversy actually SPURS people to come, who otherwise wouldn't have.