I never said I believed making money as an owner in the NFL was difficult. I said I believed owners of NFL franchises such as Huizenga probably didn't make as much money off of owning an NFL team as some might think. OK so in 2005 with the new TV deal (which wasn't in place when I originally read the article where I stated Huizenga sadi he didn't make much of a profit from owning the Dolphins and was happy in years he just broke even) it's obvious owners are making more revenue from the deal and if the franchise is operated correctly should stand to make a healthy profit. I stand corrected there.Rrodr038 said::eek:
These are direct quotes from the two articles:
"The Raiders generated $14 million in operating income last season. While this kind of return would make any other non-NFL sports owner salivate, it was still more than 30% below the league average of $22 million."
And just in case you might think that when they say operating income they are referring to something other than operating profit they refer to the Raiders 14 million dollar operarting profit again:
"All of this adds up to total revenue of $151 million, with an operating profit last season of $31 million, more than twice that of the Raiders."
The last two quotes are from the 2003 article. Here's one from the more recent 2004 article:
"The salary cap and rich TV deal gave NFL owners a cumulative operating profit of $1 billion last season, compared with collective losses for both Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League."
The billion dollar cummulative operating profit, as I said before, would be a 31.25 million dollar operating profit average. I think that's as clear cut as it gets.
Furthermore, for Atlantaphin and hehateme, who believe that making a profit is dificult in the NFL:
"The NFL system also ensures that every team makes money whether they win or lose."
"Unlike other sports though, all NFL teams prosper from this league-wide success. In the NFL, teams share 74% of their revenue compared to 34% in the National Basketball Association, 25% in baseball, and 12% for the National Hockey League."
Like I said before, I think those articles make the statement seem less true, not more true, not even taking into consideration that Huizenga owns 'Phins Stadium, which either by interest expense or rent payments negates a large expenditure.
Please also keep in mind at the the time I read this article this new TV deal was not in place and perhaps I, at the time was not that far off. Not making excuses but 5 years ago the salary cap had to be at least 20 mill less than it is now and therefore, revenue generated from the previous TV deal clearly wasn't as profitable for NFL franchises as it is now. While this new TV deal has clearly changed the financial landscape from what it was in previous years, another reason I felt some teams weren't making a lot of money was the fact that owners such as Bidwell in Arizona and Modell in Baltimore were bitching for years they couldn't turn a profit without greater revenue sharing. Why did the Browns leave Cleveland? I'd like to think if Modell was even making a penny a year profit there he would have kept the team in Cleveland. I also remember reading somewhere Modell claimed the last 2 years he had the Browns on Cleveland he lost over $50 million. Basically what I'm saying is at the time I remebered reading this article I'll still bet I wasn' t far off.