Finding financial angles in football season

By Flickr user jdanvers

From middle-school fields to multimillion-dollar arenas, gridiron seasons are getting under way. And even if you can’t tell an end run from a tight end, you can score some great business-of-sports angles from the sidelines.

The National Football League is debuting a $50 million “Back to Football” campaign which apparently involves retailers, nonprofits like the United Way and even public schools in a blast of promotions and contests.  It’s an effort to build on the increase in TV viewership and other interest sparked in part by the Cinderella Super Bowl run by the New Orleans Saints.

Here’s more on the campaign from the Sports Business Journal; you can get a free online trial to the publication, which is a veritable tutorial in covering the business of sports.  Meanwhile, see how much of the “Back to Football” spending is trickling into your local economy, along with other initiatives by the NFL to support youth sports, wellness and other local initiatives.

Forbes sort of owns the coverage of the business of football; from its newly minted NFL franchise value rankings (recession has been tough on team owners) to this piece that ran last week about top tailgating towns – and what that means for the entrepreneurs who cater to them. Then there’s FanVision – spectator-controlled in-stadium technology.  Take a look at these reports for reader-friendly business angles you can localize.

Then there’s the college football season; no less commercial for its supposed ties to academia.  Here’s an article from the University of Iowa Hawkeyes site that breaks down the economic impact of college football on the surrounding county; your readers will snap up a comparable analysis of your hometown team’s impact.  This company, SportsImpacts, says it specializes in economic analysis of sports business; you might see if they have any data or tips to share with journalists.

Don’t overlook high-school football for business angles.  The anatomy of operating a concession stand would make for a fun feature, let alone a personal finance piece on the cost of participating in high school sports, or profiles of local vendors such as uniform makers and suppliers, sports camps, specialty coaching services and more.

Teacher layoffs may be affecting coaching, as this Atlanta Journal-Constitution article points out.  Note also in the article: Difficulty garnering sponsorship money from car dealerships – which have been whammied with poor sales and of course many forced closures as automakers downsize their retail networks.  Here’s a piece from Raleigh pointing out that travel costs are keeping many top players from making the usual rounds of colleges and camps.

Also: It’s not just about the games and the players.  Umpires, cheering squads, bands, announcers, facilities managers, travel coordinators – each niche reflects a mini-industry that has its own vendors, suppliers, infrastructure, professional organizations, conferences and other facets that either generate or cost money.  Seek them out and you’ll get a truer picture of the reach of the sport into your hometown economy and careers network.

Other ideas, of course, include bars, restaurants and banquet centers; sales of big-screen TVs and other electronics; specialty cable television packages for sports buffs, stadium giveaways, used memorabilia sales, football books and magazines, licensed (and fraudulent) merchandise and sponsorships of local teams.