Amid the comedic wokeness of dueling national anthems, virtue-signaling TV commercials and rappers touching their private parts during halftime festivities, it’s easy to forget the Super Bowl and the NFL are a very big business, run by a few of the strongest businessmen (yes, they’re mostly men) in America.
Spending for last week’s Super Bowl got here in around $15 billion; yearly league revenues are approaching $20 billion. League profits are prone to continue to grow given the recognition of this sometimes brutal and increasingly lucrative sport.
Yet covering the NFL’s club of billionaires is difficult. Their thirst for money and power is filtered through fastidiously staged events and announcements from the NFL’s image-obsessed commissioner, Roger Goodell.
It’s mostly propaganda, after all. But for those who do crack the code, you quickly understand that Goodell’s obsession with wokeness, infinite Kumbaya about racial issues etc. is a difficult-to-pierce smokescreen.
Though not unimaginable. I’ve often received a sneak peek into this secretive world through events just like the annual owners’ “Inner Circle Tailgate Party.” It occurs yearly before the Super Bowl. It’s largely hidden from the hoi polloi who attend the large game, in a non-public room just walking distance from the stadium where the sport takes place.
Dr. Oz, Woody Johnson and Josh Harris attend Michael Rubin’s 2023 Fanatics Super Bowl Party on the Arizona Biltmore on Feb. 11, 2023, in Phoenix, Arizona.Getty Images for Fanatics
There’s good food there, numerous drinking and amazing gossip behind velvet ropes and the phalanx of personal security guarding billionaire owners, investment bankers, some celebrities and greater than just a few politicians. For those who can get a ticket, as I even have through the years, it’s an eye-opening display of power and privilege among the many country’s ruling business, cultural and political elites.
Full disclosure: I didn’t attend this yr’s fete in Glendale, Ariz., but a few of my sources were there to report back concerning the machinations of the NFL’s cool-kids club. While many Americans were laying odds on the winner of the large game, the honchos were obsessing about two issues particularly, I’m told: presidential politics and the subsequent owner of the Washington Commanders.
The tailgate party is a nominally bipartisan confab, so you will note Dems and GOP pols attending. The owners themselves lean heavily Republican and so they’re not afraid to throw money at candidates for national office, including the highly unwoke Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020.
This yr, the owners are changing their tune, not on the party, but on Trump. The word coming from the tailgate is that a few of the biggest GOP donors within the league don’t want Trump anywhere near the highest of the ticket, citing his cringeworthy baggage just like the Jan. 6 riot.
The Kansas City Chiefs defeated the Philadelphia Eagles within the Super Bowl. AP
It’s one reason why Tim Scott, the GOP senator from South Carolina and a rising star within the party, was greeted with open arms by the owners in the course of the Super Bowl festivities. He was often accompanied by GOP House speaker Kevin McCarthy and, in line with my contacts, Scott was buttering up attendees for money as he prepares to run for the GOP nomination against a field that features Trump, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and someone who is alleged to be the owners’ favorite, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. (Press reps for Scott and McCarthy didn’t return calls for comment).
Yes, the NFL overlords don’t want Trump to run because they don’t think he can beat Sleepy Joe Biden. Additionally they worry he can’t be beaten for the nomination with so many others splitting the anti-Trump GOP vote.
Sell that team!
The considered 4 more years of the increasingly feeble White House occupant, who has moved further to the left than even Barack Obama, was almost enough to spoil the festivities. I said almost because the opposite big topic was a possible looming, and large, payday.
It’s no secret that Commanders owner Dan Snyder is under pressure by the league to sell the team following accusations of a toxic workplace. The league is prodding him to unload the Commanders possibly before the subsequent owners meeting in March. His asking price for the storied franchise (formerly referred to as the Washington Redskins) will likely be around $6 billion and league rules mandate that any principal owner put down at the very least 30% equity within the bid.
Roger Goodell is the image-obsessed commissioner of the NFL.USA TODAY Sports
Here’s why the owners turned giddy when the subject turned to Snyder (and away from Biden): The best way teams are valued, the more he gets for the Commanders, the more other franchises are price. He bought the team in 1999 for a then-record $800 million, so at $6 billion you possibly can see how the numbers start adding up across the league.
Not a whole lot of people have that type of bank, nonetheless. The bidders that the owners were talking about include people like Josh Harris of Harris Blitzer Sports Entertainment, a former top exec at private equity firm Apollo who now owns various sports franchises including the Philadelphia 76ers. The opposite is Jeff Bezos of Amazon fame, who can be said to be eyeing the team.
Harris is a billionaire. Whether he’s enough of a billionaire to make the numbers work is unclear. (He didn’t return a call for comment.) Bezos, alternatively, is price around $120 billion, much of it liquid and a piece of it in Amazon stock. Meaning he’s guaranteed to satisfy Snyder’s and the league’s numbers and make the owners even richer.
Nothing like just a few more billions added to your net price to make you ignore 4 more years of Sleepy Joe.
