Gang of 9

[That Guy]

Originally Posted by 70Chip

Do you know how these deals work? I think the Ravens keep some, if not most of the luxury box revenue. If not, then why go to the trouble of marketing and staffing those premium seats? To me that's the real coup-- getting your locality to build the stadium and then raking in the profits. Snyder has all that debt because Cooke paid for the stadium which basically doubled the Redskins value. Snyder should ask the other owners if they would like to "share" his debt as well. But it would be interesting to see how much money goes back to the locality on one of these long term lease deals. I suspect the teams keep most of the money.

Someone said the Steelers should logically be in the Gang of 9. This is understandable because of their stalwart fans and signature brand appeal. They are a marquis name. Non-football fans know them. You would assume that they could generate large streams of revenue. My impression, though, is that Dan Rooney is sort of an ideologue on these issues. He is firmly in the "think league" camp. He was the driving force behind nixing the original Milstein/Snyder bid and was trying--some would say colluding--to allow John Cooke to retain ownership of the Skins. I think he would prefer the league to operate in a more clubby, civic minded way and not be so motivated by ostentation and profit. He views his ownership of the Steelers as a public trust rather than a business. On some level it's a stylistic rather than substantive difference. At least that has been my (total) outsider's view.

or maybe its because his stadium holds the least amount of people and doesn't have many luxury boxes.