Pitch One: Moving the St. Louis Rams to Los Angeles
- The NFL has not had a team in LA since the Rams left after the 1994 season and the Raiders moved back to Oakland after the 1995 season. The NFL is both a game and a business. Not having a team in the second largest media market is costing them dollars. The league could sell merchandise and stadium sponsorships for a Los Angeles based team. An LA stadium could also serve as a venue to a future Superbowl site, which would boost the local economy.
-This week the St. Louis Rams were denied public funding for 700 million dollars in repairs to the Edward Jones Dome (their home stadium). This allows the Rams to get out of their stadium lease after the 2014 season. It makes perfect sense for the Rams to relocate back to Los Angeles for the 2015 season. The Rams already play in the NFC West division with the San Francisco 49ers, Seattle Seahawks, and Arizona Cardinals, all western time zone teams. Moving to LA provides a better travel plan for all four teams when they play within the division.
- If the league were to pick a team to relocate to LA, the Rams would be a good choice. The team is on the rise, rebuilding its roster with many talented young players after some very lean years. They have a coach in Jeff Fisher who is a proven winner and a quarterback in Sam Bradford who is a budding star. Their defense is young and aggressive lead by Chris Long and second year defensive back Jenoris Jenkins. If kept intact, this is a team that will be competitive for a number of years. If the league plans to relocate a team to Los Angeles its smart to move a successful team then a rebuilding team. A successful team immediately attracts fans. An passionate fan base means more advertising and merchandise opportunities and greater television exposure. This means more money for the league and the team.
Pitch Two: Creating a Tuesday Night Football Television Package for the last five weeks of the season
-This pitch can be both profitable for the league and the networks. We have Sunday night football, Monday night football, and now Thursday night football. Why not Tuesday night football? After December 1st the college football regular season ends. The NBA and NHL seasons are in their beginning stages. Weather in the northeast after Thanksgiving Day is cold, dreary and dark. Most people spend their nights watching television. I am confident a Tuesday night game would do well for ratings.
-The positives are that it creates greater exposure for the league during its most crucial portion of the schedule, the last five games. If the Tuesday night schedule adapted the same rules as the sunday night schedule then the league could "flex" important games into the time slot. It also introduces fair weather fans to more teams. Thanksgiving Day normally has good game ratings because people who normally don't watch the NFL have the game on (because of tradition). A Tuesday night game could potentially have the same effect during the winter months.
- A network would have to bid for the rights to this abbreviated schedule. That's a positive for the league because its an additional revenue source to the already established television contracts. In return, the network who gets the bid is guaranteed viewership and can sell advertising premiums at a high rate (most likely higher than what they would be getting for a spot on a typical tuesday night during the holiday season).
First pitch:
ReplyDeleteYou do an excellent job arguing for moving the Rams, but I am going to disagree with you on moving them. The Midwest doesn't have a lot of professional sports teams, so taking one of the few they *do* have away seems like a bad idea. It's already difficult to follow sports when you live in the Midwest because there are so few teams close to you that you can get involved in. Maybe try moving one of the east coast teams instead? There are *so many* teams there, it doesn't seem fair to the west coast. I also want to note that just because it's a large market doesn't mean it will be good for a sports team. The LA media already has enough problems keeping their sports teams straight (the LA Kings have often had the wrong logo attributed to them on the local stations). Granted, hockey's not as popular as football, but it's still something to think about.
Second pitch:
I agree with your second and third points, though I'm going to disagree with your first one. You say the NHL is in the beginning stages in December, but the NHL season actually starts mid-October with preseason as early as the beginning of September. I do agree that having more organized football television schedules during the last few weeks of the season is crucial, but you also have to give a little leeway to the other sports as well. I really liked your idea of the networks bidding for who got the broadcasting rights, though. That seemed very fair and a good way to boost a company's viewership.