It's been 10 years........

[Bulldog]

Memo from the real world.

A lot of the people in the media limelight including businessmen and sports owners are a-holes.

In business I have heard horror stories from people that worked for industry 'heroes' like Jack Welch at GE and the 'family' Marriott at Marriott Hotels.

That said, these executives have been mostly successful during their careers.

My guess is if Snyder knew more about football and made better hiring decisions in the front office and on occasion on the football field, his 'private' side would be anedoctal but wouldn't matter to the average fan on Sundays.

It's only because the team has flagged since he took over from the lofty heights that fans look at the personal side of things.

Ironic, eh?

 

[Yusuf06]

Memo from the real world.

A lot of the people in the media limelight including businessmen and sports owners are a-holes.

In business I have heard horror stories from people that worked for industry 'heroes' like Jack Welch at GE and the 'family' Marriott at Marriott Hotels.

That said, these executives have been mostly successful during their careers.

My guess is if Snyder knew more about football and made better hiring decisions in the front office and on occasion on the football field, his 'private' side would be anedoctal but wouldn't matter to the average fan on Sundays.

It's only because the team has flagged since he took over from the lofty heights that fans look at the personal side of things.

Ironic, eh?

Ironic? Nah. It still boils down to the one thing that everyone from the Snyderatto apologists to the most rabid Snyderatto haters and everything in between can agree on, i.e. when Danny finally consistently puts a quality product on the field, the "hating" will cease. Until then, he'll have to be satisfied to be known as a douche because he's sure as hell not going to erase that perception with his personality alone.

 

[Pravda]

I've said this repeatedly over the last five years that I've known some of you--and in sum, I feel pretty much exactly the same as Chewy.

Professional sports in this day and age are not about feel good stories of cultivating life-long relationships or stated another way cultivatily loyalty within the franchise organization. And certainly not loyalty at the cost of lost revenue.

The ethos that rules the rest of the corporate world is in full force in the NFL--

The Redskins are a commodity, in many ways very similar to other commodoties--what separates the Redskins, like other professional franchises, is the fundamentally irrational devotion that people have to that commodity and their desire to consume more and more of it. This irrationality is highlighted by the fact that the commodity provides nothing directly of any material value (and arguably of other articulable value) to the consumers aside from some entertainment for those who attend games or watch them on television.

This is what makes sports teams unique: they prey on geographic loyalty as a source for achieving association and interest in the product.

And if the scope of our assessment is on how well Dan Snyder has capitalized and taken advantage of his consumer base, he absolutely gets an A+.

The guys generates huge revenues and (likely) profits year in year out irrespective of the quality of the product that's being offered--which begs whether the product that consumers are buying is quality football or just football.

Perhaps what the Redskins provide as the product is a sense of belonging and a sense of feeling part of the team--which is even stranger.

Why else at core do you think that whole concept of 12th man is part of professional football? Foster a sense of unity and belonging among the fan base so that they consume more of your product in the form of ticket sales, merchandise, etc. Perhaps even make membership in the club (i.e., the season ticket holder list) seem difficult, and therefore more desirable--hence the "20 year" waiting list.

All of these things are devices to foster support among and revenue from fans.

And all of them are things that Snyder has excelled at.

As to the on the field issues, why should Snyder or any other owner change the performance of the underlying product if the mediocre product is so financially successful?

 

[servumtuum]

Stunning, Pravda, simply stunning! It's not a "warm fuzzy" type of post but I must say I admire the absolute clarity of your description because I think you may have hit on an underlying emotional discomfort Skins fans have with Snyder-to him it's about business, pure and simple, but to the fans, it's about family.

 

[Neophyte]

As to the on the field issues, why should Snyder or any other owner change the performance of the underlying product if the mediocre product is so financially successful?

Why? Because unlike most other businesses, pro sports franchises have a second marker for success.

Championships.

Snyder can out earn every single owner in the league every year but without those Championships he is little better than the Bidwells or the Browns as an owner goes. Not to mention that with a team as lucrative as the Skins are today it can only get better with a Lombardi or two won under Dan's tenure as the owner.

Besides, he could really do a lot better financially if mediocre was the goal. Consider how much more he could put to the bottom line without the huge coaches payroll he had under Gibbs II or monster Free Agent contracts that seem a staple here every year, keeping this team right against the salary cap. In fact, I think you could argue that if just making money is the Dan's sole motivation, he is failing to maximize his profits quite seriously.

 

[brandies]

Why? Because unlike most other businesses, pro sports franchises have a second marker for success.

Championships.

Snyder can out earn every single owner in the league every year but without those Championships he is little better than the Bidwells or the Browns as an owner goes. Not to mention that with a team as lucrative as the Skins are today it can only get better with a Lombardi or two won under Dan's tenure as the owner.

Besides, he could really do a lot better financially if mediocre was the goal. consider how much more he could put to the bottom line without the huge coaches payroll he had under Gibbs II or monster Free Agent contracts that seem a staple here every year, keeping this team right against the salary cap. In fact, I think you could argue that if just making money is the Dan's sole motivation, he is failing to maximize his profits quite seriously.

I totally agree. Besides, how long will people keep spending if the product is dificient? If in 10 years from now, we are stuck in the same place, I see people losing interest.

 

[CHUBAKAH]

I totally agree. Besides, how long will people keep spending if the product is dificient? If in 10 years from now, we are stuck in the same place, I see people losing interest.

I think if that were true, the Redskins would have been losing money every year he has been the owner.

 

[Sarge]

As to the on the field issues, why should Snyder or any other owner change the performance of the underlying product if the mediocre product is so financially successful?

Ding, ding, ding

Snyder has always stated that he wants to win, but he wants to make money even more.

I mean hell, even the Cardinals have sprung up once and gone to the Super Bowl since danny bought the team

 

[Pravda]

Why? Because unlike most other businesses, pro sports franchises have a second marker for success.

Championships.

Snyder can out earn every single owner in the league every year but without those Championships he is little better than the Bidwells or the Browns as an owner goes. Not to mention that with a team as lucrative as the Skins are today it can only get better with a Lombardi or two won under Dan's tenure as the owner.

Besides, he could really do a lot better financially if mediocre was the goal. Consider how much more he could put to the bottom line without the huge coaches payroll he had under Gibbs II or monster Free Agent contracts that seem a staple here every year, keeping this team right against the salary cap. In fact, I think you could argue that if just making money is the Dan's sole motivation, he is failing to maximize his profits quite seriously.

I think that's really the big whole in my argument, right--

That if the team succeeds and wins a Super Bowl, then there's likely to be even more revenue--thus, Snyder has a very strong incentive, even if he is the financial results guy I've portrayed him to be, to make the Redskins as successful on the field as possible.

And sure, I guess that's true.

My counterpoint to that is that one way of looking at how one will take any action is to measure its consequences or ramifications. A corrolary to that is that a rational person will, when given the choice of two options, generally pick the option that either has the better outcome (or has the less pernicious negative outcome). Now what happens if there are no negative implications when one chooses the inferior of the two options? Doesn't the whole incentive for measuring consequences of the action and choosing the better of the two options fall away?

And that's where this comes back to Dan Snyder and the Redskins.

What have been the implications of 10 years of mediocrity, punctuated with some great wins that I'll remember for the rest of my life (e.g., 14-13)?

Have fans deserted the team? Have revenues declined?

Hell no! If anything revenues and profits have increased dramatically or at least perceptably.

What I'm getting at is that by fans not reacting to poor or mediocre performance on the field in diminished appetite for Redskins tickets and paraphanelia (and let's be honest here, mediocrity or pedestrian results are not acceptable in Washington--we need and expect a perennial winner), the fans lose their economic power to create a strong financial incentive to force the team's success.

And in the process, Snyder is unburdened of the mandate to produce a winner or face the consequences.

In that enviroment of skewed incentives, it becomes much easier to be complacent and/or maintain the status quo of mediocrity.

How many of us would, if we were presented with roughly the same salary irrespective of whether we worked our tail off or worked 10-3, work our tail off? Sure, some of us would work our tails off out of personal pride, but the more logical answer would be to work to 10-3 and focus our energies, whether in recreation or moonlighting business interests elsewhere.