Word: nfl
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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These new football palaces have made the games a much more pleasant customer experience. And they gush money. The Patriots' Gillette Stadium opened in 2002 at a cost of $350 million. None of it was publicly financed, and about half was initially financed by the NFL. The new stadium has 87 luxury suites, which sell for $100,000 to $300,000 annually; its 6,000 clubhouse seats go for $5,000 each. Throw in the stadium signage and naming rights, and the Patriots go from 28th in the league in stadium revenues to near the top. The Green Bay Packers...
...whom are entrepreneurs who tend to follow the golden rule of management: he who has the gold makes the rules. Those owners are assigned to committees charged with handling everything from labor, competition and broadcasting to finding a team for Los Angeles. It's a group that includes NFL rebel Al Davis of the Oakland Raiders, financial ciphers like Malcolm Glazer of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, nouveau riche types like Daniel Snyder (Redskins) and old-school owners such as the Rooney (Steelers) and Mara (Giants) families...
...trickiest part? No decision or deal can be approved without a 75% majority of the owners. "Nine guys can prevent you from taking a bathroom break," says Denver's Bowlen. For the NFL's front office, the 75% rule practically demands that any new idea or proposal be absolutely compelling, since it must be embraced by a group of powerful individuals who don't necessarily share the same agenda. "It's not that we all like each other and want to have dinner with each other all the time," says Bowlen. "It does force a clarity of thinking," says Harold...
Although the Patriots are now one of the NFL's most successful teams, the counterintuitive management lesson that owner Kraft had to learn is that losing is the defining feature of football. "Even in a good year, when you go 10-6, you are going to lose about 40% of your games," he says. So Kraft went long in his management approach. A paper-industry magnate, he says football has a lot in common with the rough-and-tumble paper trade, in which shifting commodity prices can quickly turn gains into losses. But having the right system in place brings...
Belichick defines the 21st century NFL coach: tech savvy, detail oriented and passionate about personnel--a mini-CEO in his realm. New England spends inordinate amounts of time evaluating playersand not just assessing athletic talent. It looks for personalities that fit into New England's system, which is not star driven. A head coach today, Tagliabue explains, is "someone who is effectively an executive investing half a billion dollars in the next five years." That's the amount of money each coach will have to spend on players over that period, and the salary cap prevents any team from buying...