Those with an appetite for learning how their NFL sausage gets made will find fascinating a couple of nuggets from this afternoon’s scratch ticket unveiling in Foxboro.
The $5 ticket (which features the Patriots Flying Elvis logo 11 times), is a sign of the economic times for both the league and states around the country.
First on the league front, franchises seeing revenue streams like advertising and naming rights dry up are forced to hustle to find new ones.
And with nearly 60 percent of all revenues going to the players (regardless of the economy), teams have to hustle to make sure the pile of revenue they make doesn’t shrink so drastically they can’t cover their own spending (coaches salaries, mortgages, electric bills, etc)
“If it wasn’t for the economic times, (the league allowing lottery deals might not have happened),” said Patriots Chairman Robert Kraft. “The fact that we know to get an extension to the labor agreement, we have to work every way we can to grow revenues.
“Look at spending by automobile companies and (beer companies), they’re just not spending,” Kraft added. “We have two bankrupt automotive companies. (Other) car companies are just not spending money. And beer companies aren’t spending the way they did.
“We have to go out and be resourceful and create new revenue or we’ll have a real problem in the labor area.”
The dirty detail for the 32 franchises is that, just because New England gets it off the ground in their market, the money doesn’t just pay the Patriots. Of the money the franchise earns from each $5 ticket, 60 percent goes into the pile that is to be paid out to ALL NFL players, not just the Patriots.
And therein lies the conflict between owners.
New England aggressively works its market and grows a new revenue stream that helps pay players in Cincinnati or Jacksonville, but are those franchises busting ass to work their markets too so that, league-wide, the total gross revenue generated remains the same or higher even in a down economy?
Getting the league to sign off on this form of gambling was aided by two factors, said Patriots vice chairman Jonathan Kraft.
“This is a game of chance that is not based on the performance of the team, the scores of games...It’s really just our logo, there’s no tie to how the team is performing on the field,” said Jonathan Kraft. “The league (decided it) would allow this if it was just tied to the logo and had no ties to the players, the games or the scores of games.”
The other push point, at least in Massachusetts, was that the state lottery money is a major cash cow for funding projects and services in the state’s 351 cities and towns.