Guest post: NFL Fail?

Hello everyone, it's me, the artist formerly known as JB.  I write today as a conflicted lifetime football fan.  My conflicts are many...growing evidence of brain damage among former players is going to be an epidemic that will have us all beating our chests for every time we cheered a knockout hit.  The economics of the game are outrageous.  And, of course, my team, the San Diego Chargers, are notorious chokers and disappoint me to no end.  My latest disgust with the NFL, however, dovetails nicely with this blog, whose author was kind enough to offer me a guest spot.

The NFL awards one player its "Man of the Year" award each season.  This year the award will be presented during the multi-billion dollar spectacle known as the Super Bowl.  The process is that each team selects its own nominee, the league picks 3 finalists and during halftime of the Superbowl the winner is announced.  The prize money goes like this- each player picks a charity, each team's nominee receives $1000 for his charity, each finalist receives an additional $5000, and the winner receives a check for $20,000 for the charity of his choosing.  $20,000 is a sizable donation for an organization to receive, but is a pittance to the NFL.  A $1000 check from the NFL is like one of those dividends that comes in the mail from a stock you forgot you own, made out in an amount less than the first class postage they put on the envelope.

Every commercial break now seems to include at least one ad touting the good that this or that corporation is doing.  Of course they realize that this makes consumers feel better about buying their products, and I'm OK with that.  At the same time, I hope they are spending at least as much on the donation as they did to make their self-congratulatory commercial.  The NFL fails miserably here in that regard.  StubHub currently lists 4 Super Bowl tickets in the corner of the end zone for $20,000.   Every player on the LOSING team will receive a check for $43,000.  (I realize the NFL is not writing either of these checks, but the amount of money being thrown around is beyond ridiculous)  The economics just don't make sense and for the NFL to try and buy some good PR with this is an insult.  They should just let us watch 3 extra minutes of Madonna and the Foo Fighters.