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February 11, 2011
This week (or so) in me: Super Bowl stories
I've been trying to be better here about posting links to news articles where I've commented on stadium and arena issues — maybe if I try to do it weekly, I'll have more success. Anyway, two recent articles of note:
- In Tuesday's Washington Post, sports columnist Sally Jenkins took on the overpriced world of the modern Super Bowl, or as she calls it, Jerry World: "In Jerry World, the state of Texas spends $31 million to host the Super Bowl, even as deficits force public school cuts. In Jerry World, it can cost $900 just to park. In Jerry World, fans pay hundreds of dollars to stand outside the stadium." My contribution: "That's revolutionary if you can sell tickets to not actually watch the game. ... So obviously everybody is saying, 'Hey, we want to get one of those.'"
- In last Thursday's Wall Street Journal, Mark Yost took advantage of Super Bowl week to conduct a look at NFL stadiums whose debt has outlived their teams, including some (like Indianapolis' RCA Dome) where the stadium is demolished but the debt lives on. I try to put all this in some context, including an attempt to explain why it doesn't really matter when you pay off debt, though I suspect the quote got a bit mangled in editing; key unmangled quote: "The only thing limiting how soon owners will ask for a new stadium is chutzpah."
Hmmmmn.
The $31M figure for Texas funding for the Superbowl is interesting.
I was watching the game in a sports bar on 'free tv' (don't tell Jerry, he'll send me a bill for not attending...) with one of my pals. During a lull (not in play, we were waiting for more beers), we casually discussed the gate take at Jerry World.
Now, being naturally conservative (at least fiscally...), we decided that at an average net of $300 per ticket (which is almost certainly low, given that people were paying $200 to stand outside...), his take would be - you guessed it - $30-32M.
I guess that's what they call synergy in Texas, huh?
John, I'm going to correct your math. The cheapest tickets inside the stadium were $600. Most of the seats though were $800 to $1,000 with the people in the suites paying more.
That money doesn't go directly to Jerry Jones. The NFL gets the revenue from the Super Bowl. Some of that league money does eventually get to the teams, but very little of the revenue goes to even the host team.
One of my colleagues at The Dallas Morning News wrote a story about how Jones would profit from the Super Bowl. He found that Jones stood gain much more from his share of Legends, the company provide concessions at Cowboys Stadium, and from his share of many of the local Papa John's Pizza franchises.