by Brad Sullivan

If there is no NFL season next fall don’t look for fans to take the owners’ side.

Mike Vaccaro of the New York Post writes that there are 4 reasons why fans back the players in labor disputes.

Vacarro writes: “Owners in football, and football alone, have soaked their fans with personal-seat licenses, a personal affront that a lot of fans — even those who have forked over the cash — never will forgive.”

Read the rest of Vacaro’s article here.

by Scott Weiss 

Joe Drape of NYTimes.com discusses how an NFL lockout of the players would be very risky on the part of the owners.  “To veterans of these sports labor battles, it is a risky strategy because the N.F.L must explain to fans who have paid exorbitant sums for personal seat licenses and season tickets why it is willing to risk closing down its business when business is good,” Drape said.  For the NFL, which has clearly taken over from MLB as America’s Game, it is hard to imagine that they would jeopardize their title belt that they fought so hard to achieve.

Former MLB Commissioner Fay Vincent said it best, when he commented that, “The N.F.L. is the premier sports business in the country by a large margin. There is only one way to go, and that is down. It’s pretty dangerous to tamper with fans’ passion and good will.”  That good will that fans have shown has finally run its course, and it’s time for us to get something good in return.  A lockout would not fit the description of something good in return.

Read the full story here.

by Jonathan Maldonado

With the chance of New Orleans  losing thier Hornets franchise to Seattle, fans sold out New Orleans Arena the other night in a game against the OKC Thunder, bringing the average attendance above the required benchmark. The support clearly demonstrates the fans want the team to stay and allows the team to stay for at least one more year.

by Jonathan Maldonado

Just how is someone able to build one of the most expensive structures in the U.S. and make it home to the most successful and wealthiest sports franchises in the world? Not only that, but do so in the poorest congressional district in the U.S.? According to the 2000 census, that district is the South Bronx. Now the Bronx is no third world country, but if 42.2% of its resident’s live under the poverty line and its hometown team has a payroll of $207 million a year, there is a huge problem. Even more troubling, the South Bronx seems to be heading toward the title of hungriest district as well after 2010′s census results are revealed. Talk about economic divide.

The construction of Yankee Stadium not only saw the rise of a $1.5 billion masterpiece in the middle of a poverty stricken neighborhood, it also stripped that same neighborhood of places needed to serve the community . This places included parks, playgrounds, tracks, pools, ball fields, and so on. The Yankee organization has promised to replace all of these, but after two entire seasons, that is still yet to be seen.

Whats worse is that this stadium, as well as the Mets’ new home Citi Field, were in part funded by the taxes of New York City residents. Yankee Stadium received $362 million in taxpayer money and Citi Field received $138 million. This means not only did the city and the Yankee organization take away our places of recreation, but used our money to do so. Remember that 42.2% resident poverty? Well, according to Department of Health and Human Services, the poverty threshold in 2009 for a single person when the stadium opened was $10, 830 a year. A premium seat in Yankee Stadium is about $2,600. Thats 24% of the yearly income of a single person living in poverty. That. Is. Wrong.

Now I am a die hard Yankee fan. I love the team, the players and the coaches. What goes on during the game and on the field is what I care about when it comes to this team. The Yankee organization is a totally different story. They throw hundred of millions of dollars at players without looking out across the street to help those people who could really use it. The Yankees owe the citizens of New York more than they can ever be worth, and the one they owe most are their next door neighbors.

Jonathan Maldonado is serving as a, SFC Sportswriter Fellow based in New York City. He is a Broadcast Journalism major at Hofstra University. Jonathan comes from the Bronx and is an avid sports fan. The Yankees, Jets and Knicks are his favorite sports teams.

While there’s only one game left in the NFL season, there’s still plenty of political football being played in Washington. And the result of this game will shape the sport and the country for years to come.

Last Wednesday, several NFL players took to Capitol Hill to meet with lawmakers about the looming lockout.  Their primary message was that a lockout would have severe economic consequences for local communities. (The consequences likely won’t be as drastic as the NFLPA have portrayed them, but some businesses and workers will be affected.) The media lapped up the images of the giant (mostly) linemen in their dress suits, standing on the steps of the Capitol.

In an effort to dampen the public relations impact of the visit, the NFL (owners) accused the players of trying to get Congress involved.

“This deal will be reached at the negotiating table, not in the halls of Congress,” said chief NFL lobbyist Jeff Miller, a former counsel to Sen. Herbert Kohl, D-Wis. “We don’t think a third-party intervention, whether it’s for Congress or anyone else, helps you get a deal here.”

The accusations from the NFL regarding congressional involvement are laughable considering that the NFL has spent millions of dollars the last few years lobbying Congress.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics:

During the first nine months of 2010, the NFL spent nearly $1.1 million on federal lobbying efforts, easily putting it on pace to exceed the $1.31 million it spent for all of2009. As recently as 2006, the NFL’s federal lobbying output stood at a relatively paltry $380,000.

And from January to September of last year (fourth quarter data will be out later this month), the NFL employed a team of 24 federal lobbyists — enough to field a full offense and defense, plus a kicker and punter.

First off, 24 lobbyists working full-time for the interests of NFL owners?!? Second, looking at how much the NFL has increased its lobbying expenditures in the last couple years , one thing is clear – they’ve been gearing up for a nasty labor dispute for a long time now. They even created a political action committee (NFL PAC) to For them to start complaining about the players approaching Congress is absurd.

The players have also spent more money than ever lobbying Congress, but their $340,000 (through the first nine months of 2010) is a fraction of what the owners have spent. (And they don’t have a PAC.)

The primary goal of owners’ lobbying efforts is for Congress to stay out of the dispute. And Congress is certainly not anxious to get involved.

“When it comes to their negotiations over a new collective bargaining agreement, that is a business dispute,” Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) said in a statement. “The owners and players are both literally and figuratively big boys and do not need Congress to referee every dispute for them.”

With all due respect to Rep. Smith (whose most recent re-election campaign received $10,000 from the NFL), this is more than a business dispute. The public is already involved. Fans and taxpayers have spent over $6.5 billion subsidizing NFL stadiums. They didn’t pay for empty stadiums and empty stadium districts.

Where are the dozens of lobbyists working for the best interests of fans? Where are the high-paid public relations firms framing the issue on behalf of fans?

There is one organization that’s doing its best with its (comparatively) limited resources: Sports Fans Coalition.

The same day players were on Capitol Hill, Sports Fans Coalition was over at the White House, briefing staff on the looming lockout and our efforts to Save Next Season. We made it clear that fans will not accept missed games next fall and that we have invested billions of dollars into growing the NFL into something so profitable that the owners and players are now willing to stop the games to fight over how to split up those profits.

If the labor dispute drags on past March 4, it is inevitable that Congress will get involved and the President will eventually be forced to weigh in. When that time comes, fans need to be organized into one giant collective voice. (Incidentally, if there are any lobbying firms, lobbyists and/or public relations firms in DC who want to make a name for themselves by representing fans on this issue – pro bono, of course – now’s the time to get involved.)

Owners may have the wealth and players may have their star power, but the fans have numbers. Let’s use them so that we end up winning this fight.

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Brian Frederick is the Executive Director of Sports Fans Coalition. He holds a Ph.D. in Communication and lives in Washington, D.C. Email him at brian@sportsfans.org.