The Sports Economy: Driven by the Fans
Sports are one of the most popular forms of entertainment in America, attracting hundreds of thousands of viewers and billions of dollars every year. The industry has been exploding for some time now; it is a far cry from the early days of the NFL and the NBA, when there were few teams and few fans. Now, it seems, everyone is attracted to sports. The different leagues, from the National Football League to the National Basketball Association to the National Hockey League, are all making millions upon millions, and this wildly expanding economy is driven almost entirely by the sports fans.
In the NFL, salaries seem to be going up every year; each new rookie gets a higher salary that the rookie drafted the year before. This is a consistent and traceable phenomenon. It is unthinkable that salaries would go the other direction, unless there is a massive overhaul of the rules or a lockout -- both of which are very real possibilities in the near future. What has spurred this growth, though, and this ability to pay new players more and more, is the money coming in from the fans. From ticket sales to advertising to jersey sales, sports fans are willing to put out more and more money, which is in turn funneled to the players and the owners.
As far as players go, there is some discrepancy in how much money they get based on how much they generate. For example, Tim Tebow has the highest selling jersey this year, and did almost from the moment he was drafted in the late first round by the Denver Broncos. However, none of this money goes to Tim Tebow. He would receive the same salary, somewhere right around ten million dollars, if he only sold one jersey, and it was to his mother or maybe to Urban Meyer. So, from that perspective, the fans are not having a direct impact on the salaries. However, they are having a huge impact on the big business that is the sports empire.
Tebow, in the end, is bringing in a lot of money for Denver Broncos owner Pat Bowlen. This is being distributed in many ways, from paying salaries to outfitting Invesco Field at Mile High, where the Broncos play their home games in the thin air. This is one of the most direct ways that fans can influence the business side of things, and jerseys have gotten so popular that they are making millions a year for lucky owners like Bowlen. Some have even theorized -- though this would not sit well with fans if it came to light -- that owners have sometimes drafted high-profile players just for their names, and for the amount of jerseys they will sell. Tebow's jersey is selling like crazy all over the country, but especially in Florida. He had such a following at the university there, and Bowlen was able to tap that market by taking him. Now, it is very hard to prove that an owner would do such a thing, as many high-profile players that will sell jerseys are also very good at football. A team would legitimately want them. However, there is no dispute to the fact that taking a player like Tim Tebow -- or Ndamukong Suh, or Sam Bradford -- will bring in a lot more money in sales than taking a player like Kyle Wilson or Demaryius Thomas. Fans will come to the stadiums just to see these guys take the field.
The impact of the fans can certainly be seen when looking at the newest stadiums. Two teams, giants in their sports, have built new stadiums recently: the Dallas Cowboys and the New York Yankees. Both stadiums are unprecedented in how nice they are, how big, and how much they offer to the fans. For example, the overhead screen in the new Dallas Cowboys' stadium is so big that when an NCAA basketball game was played there, the court was smaller than the screen. Fans are coming to stadiums in huge numbers, and the stadiums are reacting to what the fans want, and what the fans are willing to give.
Sports are no longer a game, but a business. This has never been more clear. As long as fans will spend millions on tickets, merchandise, and food and beverages inside the stadiums, the sporting economy will continue to rise.
