Ben Gilbert
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Appearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
Like, the new Giants-Jets one in New York is funded by the team in the NFL, whereas, like, the Bills one is going to be funded by the state of New York, largely.
Every piece of research you read there is like, yeah, they're a best break-even for communities, unless it's part of some larger economic redevelopment thing.
So I think the NFL has... They're now unbelievably extractive of the networks.
They've historically been very extractive of players, but now the players seem to have a pretty good or at least better deal than they ever had before.
And NFL teams are very extractive of communities in the stadium deals.
And I think if you look at the $18 billion a year of revenue, the NFL, if you include the players, captures as much value as it possibly can.
They are unbelievably good at value capture.
Value capture pioneers, I believe, is a phrase that we used on another episode.
But it is amazing how much Mindshare the NFL does own, in my opinion, on top of the actual revenue number.
They don't leave a lot of consumer surplus in dollars, but given our earlier conversation that $18 billion isn't that much revenue compared to other companies we've covered on this show, maybe there is some kind of unquantifiable consumer mindshare that does exist on top of any of the revenue they generate.
How can you put a price on the fun of a Super Bowl party or texting about an amazing catch with your dad or, you know, there's all sorts of things that are hard to value.
As we talked about, these NFL teams are valued more like scarce beachfront property, more so than cash-flowing businesses.
I'd be curious to hear anyone's thought on if the NFL generates more value than $18 billion a year.
Interestingly, the NFL today is less about sort of what it was in the 40s, 50s and 60s.
This team of guys who really hates another team and wants to destroy them at all costs.
And they're led by this fearless leader who's probably also their owner and maybe a player on the team.
At this point, the players seem to recognize that they're all basically employees and the players are more in it together as coworkers than they are against each other.