“Does it pay to win in the NBA? The best straight answer is not so much for the short run one season wonder — but definitely yes in spades for a consistent long run winner.” 

“Winning doesn’t seem to matter as much as market size for NHL valuation, but consistent winning over a cumulative five- to 10-year span is relatively important for NBA club values.”

“When franchises are sold, they are usually sold at prices 25 to 30 per cent higher than their actual true value, because a sports franchise is essentially a monopoly cash cow where the winning bidder in an auction pays the highest price — not the most accurate price.”

— John Vrooman, Toronto Star

---

“NASCAR buying a track operator is called vertical integration and often considered to be an anti-competitive attempt to monopolize an industry. SMI will certainly feel the heat on their bottom line.” 

— John Vrooman, Charlotte Observer

---

“When push comes to shove, regional economic multipliers are usually zero-sum, if not negative-sum at best.”

“If the proposed project really had a positive-sum economic impact of $3.8 billion it would soon be, or would already have been undertaken by the private sector –the NFL Carolina Panthers in this case – a long time ago, without the false prioritization and economic redistribution effects of government policy.”

— John Vrooman, Charlotte Business Journal

---

“Optimal revenue sharing is an empirical question because it ultimately depends on the supply-side objectives of club owners throughout the league.”

“Owners range from being profit maximizers who are only in it for the money to sportsmen gamers who are only in it to win it.” 

— John Vrooman, CNBC

---

“Nothing will be left for the Queen City but the congestion and the tab.”

— John Vrooman, Charlotte Business Journal

---

“The classic venue extortion gambit is played out by monopoly sports cartels that limit their league size to create at least one viable market (currently Seattle in the NBA or NHL) that is empty without a team.”

“This game of musical chairs creates extortion triangles that maximize the leverage sports teams can put on local governments with the threats of franchise relocation.” 

— John Vrooman, Arizona Republic

---

“The new NFL CBA is the elephant in the room.”

“The really bad news for Lawrence and his classmates is that the current rookie capped labor market is probably better than the one owners will ultimately impose, and the veterans will accept on their behalf, sight-unseen in the new CBA.”

— John Vrooman, Bloomberg News

---

“Kada čitate samo-promotivne procjene učinaka snažno politiziranih sportskih događaja poput Svjetskog nogometnog prvenstva na domaće gospodarstvo, slobodno pomaknite decimalnu točku za jedno mjesto ulijevo.”

Croatian to English:“When you read self-promotional assessments of the effects of heavily politicized sports events such as the World Cup in the domestic economy, move the decimal point to one place left” 

– John Vrooman Direktno

---

 

“Pac-12 NewCo. sounds interesting but I doubt the plan will work (beyond the watershed year of 2024), or attract investors (as long as the 12 institutions retain ‘super voting shares to ensure ongoing operational controls.’)” 

— John Vrooman, Inside Higher Ed

---

“The modus operandi of the Panthers will initially involve a modest bargaining (extortion) triangle between at least two alternative relocation sites, like the two Carolinas.”

“Most of the economic gains will accrue to the Panthers and project developers and leak out of the local economy like a sieve.”

“The Panthers are simply keeping up with the Joneses by building separate practice facilities.” 

— John Vrooman, Charlotte Observer

---

“Almost all public/private stadium funding shares are the end result of a negotiation process that is often as aggressive and ultimately self-serving as a messy divorce,”

“From the Rays perspective, they are probably seeking revenue certainty which is critical in the sports business, and they are frustrated with the gridlock in the give and take politics of local government.”

— John Vrooman, Tampa Bay Times

---

“It (non-class action decision in NHL concussion case) severely limited the damages to the NHL owners and benefits to the NHL players. This decision essentially forced the 140 (plus) players involved in the suit to settle and prevented the participation of all other potential litigants.”

“So it will seem that both sides ‘won’ in what was really a lopsided victory for the owners. It’s just that all of the owners won by gaining current and future protection from damages and a minor fraction of the players won something that they would have zero chance in obtaining in isolation versus the league.”

— John Vrooman, Associated Press, USAToday

---

“The negative-sum relocation of the SD Chargers into a 2-team LA market also occupied by the Rams was an economically inferior move to begin with.”

“The League (NFL) essentially shot itself in the foot by adding competition to a monopoly market in LA.”

“The League as a whole would be better off without the self-defeating bottom line competition with itself in LA.”

— John Vrooman, San Antonio Business Journal

---

“There’s little left for local taxpayers in Arlington (after Dallas Cowboys AT&T Stadium subsidy), but the game-day congestion and the regressive tax bill.”

— John Vrooman, Bloomberg News

---

 “Mobile coexists with Birmingham, Montgomery, and Huntsville on an economic tier below Miami, Atlanta, Charlotte and New Orleans or maybe Nashville in the Southeastern economic hierarchy or pyramid.”

“It’s called the Zoo effect because the cities at the top of the pyramid have the big fancy Zoos and major symphonies so the lower tier cities can pass over those services and concentrate on more local public economic issues like public safety, schools and roads.”

“Mobile can pass on the symphony and the zoo and concentrate on a set of second-tier services similar to Birmingham, Montgomery and Huntsville, but it has to also provide the second level of services for the smaller cities below it in its sub-regional economic pyramid.”

“This is why Mobile is now dealing with diverse fiscal issues like a minor league baseball park without a team … a football stadium at the University of South Alabama and a new civic center.”

“Mobile should be more aggressive and consistent on the public services that exist in its own unique Gulf Coast pyramid, and lay back and let the upper-tier pyramid and private business services be funded by top-tier markets and private business.”

— John Vrooman, Al.com

---

“Ironically the two college fund-raising sources are not locked up in a mutually exclusive turf battle between brains and brawn.There are significant mutual benefits to academic and athletic fund-raising in both public and private institutions.”

“The multimillion-dollar question is how to effectively internalize those significant and underutilized positive-sum externalities.”

— John Vrooman, Inside Higher Ed

---

“In effect, the league (NHL) has reverse engineered its own perfect storm.”

“As long as the Golden Knights are skating, scoring and defending at this Stanley Cup level they can also hold off the challenges of the…NFL Raiders who are scheduled to arrive in 2020.”

“The realistic long-run expectations for the Knights is to hang with the middle of the NHL pack with current revenue of $150 million.”

— John Vrooman, The New York Times

---

“Estimations of net economic impact of hosting one-time sporting mega-events like the World Cup are grossly over-exaggerated by the host country. The overall direct impact is probably zero-sum at best because of the negative congestion costs and crowding out of other economic activity.”

“There are also significant underlying distributional factors that falsely prioritize the political agendas of football/soccer and hospitality industries. As a result, the wildly optimistic economic spread and multiplier effects for the World Cup are clearly self-promotion schemes designed to justify something-for-nothing state subsidy of the private business of professional football.”

“The limitations of the Russian economy and the state of Russian domestic football both restrict the broadly distributed economic impact of the current World Cup, as much of the benefit of the tournament will head to the highly visible and economically ambitious Russian Premier League.”

“Exaggerating the economic impact of the World-Cup mega-event is self-promotion. Playing the meta-game of political football on the World Cup pitch is a very expensive quick fix.”

— John Vrooman, Pacific Standard

---

“Ball parks are generally bad anchors for economic development and the external spin-off effects are usually exaggerated.” 

— John Vrooman, Tampa Bay Times

---

“Porter Moser (Loyola coach) built this team from grassroots recruiting the basketball way, and they play the game (especially defense) the way it’s supposed to be played to be successful in a one-and-done tournament.”

“Unfortunately this also makes Moser attractive at the next big-boy level. Sister Jean is important, but Coach Moser is critical. Moser is possibly looking at a cool $1 million.” 

— John Vrooman, CBS News

---

“The negotiations for the next TV deal (2022) could reveal the demand-side weakness of the networks and cable, but the League (NFL) is usually one or two steps ahead” 

“Given the fact that league ownership is rapidly aging, as much as one fourth of the NFL could currently be up for sale.” 

“During the salary cap era since the early 1990s the value of the average NFL franchise has increased at an exponential rate of 11.6 percent—about twice the growth rate of the S&P 500.”

“The NFL is a fully-automatic perfectly-diversified stone-cold money machine collectively valued at $80 billion, over 6 times $13 billion in guaranteed revenues.”

— John Vrooman, Charlotte Observer

---

“Goldman Sachs always works from the worst case math and it will be sheltered from all risk in any stadium deal before the other members of the consortium, the club and certainly the City of Rotterdam (in that order).” 

“The problem is of course that Goldman’s welfare depends on the worst-case almost certain outcome, while Feyenoord (City) and municipal Rotterdam depend on a less likely, best-case scenario on or off the pitch.”

“The new generation of luxury sports venues are designed to hermetically capture all of the economic gains within the venue, or at least in this case within Feyenoord City. There is nothing left for municipal Rotterdam but congestion and the bill.”

— John Vrooman, Algemeen Dagblad (AD Netherlands)

---

“The impact-only statements ignore the negative drain on the other sectors of the private economy, and so both the public spending and the direct private spending at the soccer venue come at the expense of other sectors in the Austin regional economy.”

“The impact studies promote spending in one part of the economy and minimize the losses in other sectors.”

“When a stadium promoter touts a $400 million impact over 25 years, they are simply multiplying their bogus annual revenue estimate by 25 to justify a mega bang for the public buck.”

“The actual jobs for the MLS matches are mostly low-wage seasonal jobs that are not exactly the best drivers for economic development. The owners live out of town and so even the big bottom line bucks will blow out of town with them to the Coast. There is nothing left for the City of Austin but the congestion, lost parkland and the bill.”

— John Vrooman, Austin Business Journal

---

“This local bill seems to be inadequate in scope to solve the national problem that it is trying to correct. That is the underlying reason why the stadium extortion game persists. The subsidized NFL is playing chess while the local subsidizing governments are playing checkers.”

“If 25 states adopt a mutually binding non-relocation agreement, then what about the other opportunistic 25 states. Regulation of the footloose and fickle NFL must bind all potential states and markets, and the regulatory authority should come from the Federal level.”

“Unfortunately, for local taxpayers held hostage, that ain’t gonna happen anytime soon.”

— John Vrooman, Arizona Republic

---

“In the short run, NFL values are a simple function of market size and the certainty of cash flow from luxury seat cash cow venues.”

“The difference between the top and bottom values of the NFL clubs is much smaller than other major sport leagues because of extensive revenue sharing (two-thirds of NFL revenue is shared equally) and the relative certainty of franchise cash flow (much like a perfectly diversified stock portfolio).

“A new luxury venue can alone increase value by 25 percent to 30 percent.”

“Given the relative recent performance of the Eagles and Cowboys teams it is easy to see that the difference in franchise value has more to do with the cash flow of Jerry’s World compared to the Linc than the actual quality of the teams between the lines—in the short run.”

“Winning in the short run, like an isolated one and done SB victory, could increase the franchise value, but only if it solidifies the certainty of the season-ticket corporate ticket and sponsorship base.”

“Most evidence suggests than winning in the short run is largely an insignificant fleeting factor unless it translates into a consistent sustained long-run winning tradition or reputation.

“So the Eagles need to keep on flying to increase in value relative to the rest of the League.”

— John Vrooman, Philadelphia Business Journal

---

“The economic spread or multiplier effects for sports venues at any level are usually exaggerated by local suburban satellite city politicians and team owners/developers because they are the ones who enjoy the benefits without bearing the costs.”

“So the good news and the bad news are usually the same: if the positive spinoffs of attracting a team for Madison/Huntsville are negligible in the end then the negative effects of losing one for Mobile are too.”

“South Alabama and Mobile will be fine without the BayBears.”

“Ironically, the only real impact of attracting or losing a sports franchise at any level (including AA) is an intangible “water-cooler effect” of networking sports throughout the respective communities.”

“Although sports venues are historically bad anchors for economic development, there may be some positive synergies with surrounding private development. But that creates the fundamental asymmetric equity distribution problem.”

“The City of Madison gets stuck with the $50 million stadium bill, while most of economic spinoffs go to the private developers of Town Madison and/or owners of the minor league club, or they are simply dissipated throughout the greater Huntsville economy.

“In the end, successful private developers usually internalize almost all of the synergistic gains derived from their developments. That’s what they do.”

“It is altogether likely that the economic development impact of the larger retail and commercial development of Town Madison will have a greater impact than the ballpark itself, with or without a ballpark that will be used at capacity less than 70 times a year.”

“The mechanics of the franchise-relocation venue-extortion game are basically the same at the major league or minor league level. The monopoly driven relocation gambit in the quasi-public funding of professional sports venues is like an unstable game of musical chairs, where there are always more empty markets than there are available clubs.”

“Professional sports leagues maximize the public subsidization of a largely private business by pitting potential markets against one another (Mobile v. Huntsville v. Savannah v. Baton Rouge) and the winners curse is to systematically over-subsidize in order to win.”

“In the advanced stages, the relocation–extortion game usually plays satellite suburban cities of larger markets against one another because the political outcomes are easier to manipulate and control.”

— John Vrooman, AL.com

---

“The irony of Carolina’s current anxiety over losing the Panthers in an all-too-familiar NFL franchise-relocation venue-extortion game is that in the beginning BOA (ne Ericsson) Stadium was the architectural prototype of the new luxury seat PSL venue that spawned the NFL stadium revolution over the last quarter century.”

“Keep pounding, Carolina.”

“Given the current ownership structure of the Panthers and ongoing renovations (and lease agreements) at BOA, the new majority ownership partner will probably be from or have strong financial ties to sweet home Carolina, and the Panthers are not likely to engage a credible franchise-relocation stadium-extortion game for at least another decade.”

— John Vrooman, Charlotte Observer

---

“The Vegas Golden Knights are enjoying a perfect storm resulting from the confluence of two events.  First, the honeymoon period for an expansion franchise in a nontraditional hockey market like Vegas is usually about three seasons.

“Second, the home attendance in a nontraditional hockey market like Vegas is extremely sensitive (highly elastic) with respect to the quality of the team on the ice.”

“This is especially true for an economically one-dimensional and inverted corporate/tourist season-ticket fan-base expansion experiment like Las Vegas.”

— John Vrooman, Bleacher Report

---

“Rest easy Carolina, it is likely that the prospective owners will come from the Carolina region, and given the current wave of renovations to BoA, it is unlikely that the Carolina Panthers would be relocated in the next decade.”

“Given the scarcity of NFL franchises ever being placed on the auction block, the Carolina club could easily bring an overvalued final bid price of $3 billion in a winner-take-all monopoly auction.”

— John Vrooman, Charlotte Business Journal

---

“At the very least, the underlying long-run effect of the N.F.L.’s traveling expansion-relocation gambit is ultimately to widen the league’s worldwide media footprint.”

— John Vrooman, New York Times

---

“Por lo menos, el efecto a largo plazo de la apuesta de expansión-reubicación viajera de la NFL causará que se amplíe la huella mundial de la liga.”

— John Vrooman, New York Times en Español

---

“Instead of artificially inflating the expansion membership fees from an artificially scarce number of slots, the MLS should probably expand to at least 36 to 40 teams and merge with the NASL and USL to form a multitiered North American soccer pyramid.”

“This is the only way to merge the internally and externally optimal league sizes, and to develop North American soccer talent on a level to consistently play the beautiful game on par the rest of the football world.”

— John Vrooman, ESPN FC

---

“The NFL is a natural cartel that exerts major monopoly power over its die-hard fans, media outlets and general taxpayers. By artificially limiting the number of franchises, the league is able to maximize revenues, profits, franchise value and expansion and relocation fees while playing thinly veiled extortion games for public stadium subsidies.”

“Media rights fees have exploded for all major North American leagues under the current contracts largely because of the cord-cutting advent of new media. Live sports are the only live media content remaining that is attractive to commercial sponsorships.”

— John Vrooman, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

---

“Ironically the only real impact of a mega-event (World Series) is the intangible meta-networking or water cooler effect that unites all of Houston and South Texas, especially after the recent devastation from Hurricane Harvey.”

— John Vrooman, Texas Monthly

---

“The league (NFL) has an asymmetric revenue sharing scheme that distorts the relative importance of the revenue sources and encourages franchise relocation and stadium extortion games. Only venue revenue – luxury suite sales, stadium naming rights and other corporate sponsorships – is not shared with the rest of the league.” 

“Venue revenue for the Bolts in San Diego was probably about $70 million, only one-fifth of the $350 million venue cash for the Dallas Cowboys in AT&T Stadium.”

— John Vrooman, Yahoo Sports

---

“The Louisville Cardinals are a stone cold semi-professional money machine. The economic connection between Louisville and UL Cardinals basketball is unique.”

— John Vrooman, Bloomberg Businessweek

---

“Because Louisville basketball is currently on probation, the NCAA may hit the program with the death penalty, which would of course magnify the adverse impact on the school and the city of Louisville. The death penalty is rare, but real and possibly imminent.”

— John Vrooman, Louisville Business First , Reuters

---

“The legitimate mainstream business opportunities for Juice (O.J. Simpson) in the megabuck world of professional sports are slim and none.”  

“If Americans love anyone more than a superhero, it is a fallen hero making a comeback against the odds, but Juice’s odds as a multiple repeat offender now seem insurmountable”

— John Vrooman, Washington Post, AP

---

« La hausse des assistances est autant liée à la chute des Titans du Tennessee (NFL), qui étaient jadis puissants, qu’au succès des Predators sur la patinoire. »

« Le dollar consacré au divertissement est très compétitif à Nashville, et les Predators sont parvenus à attirer des clients commerciaux désabusés des Titans, de même que des particuliers qui détenaient des abonnements de saison. Nashville devient tranquillement une ville de hockey. »

— John Vrooman, La Presse Montreal

---

“The key to increasing franchise value in nontraditional NHL markets is consistent winning and consistent playoff runs beyond the first round. … This Preds team has been built the old-school hockey way. The Western Conference Champion Nashville Predators are legit, and Smashville has become a hockey town. … It is clear that the major ‘real’ economic impact of the Preds’ run for Lord Stanley’s Cup is ironically the intangible networking or ‘water cooler effect’ throughout Music City.”  

— John Vrooman, Nashville Business Journal

---

“The NFL has strategically excluded many potentially profitable mid-markets in order to create a monopoly auction among the many frustrated applicants. This monopoly cartel exclusion maximizes inflated public stadium subsidies that are simply not justified by the negligible external positive impact of the relocating teams.”

“Because of the extensive revenue sharing in the NFL it doesn’t really matter where you play as long as the club is playing in a shiny new luxury seat stadium.” 

“Over $4 billion in public stadium subsidies were leveraged from the credible threat of NFL teams relocating to LA. At least $1 billion of the NFL’s $13 billion in current annual revenues is derived from public government subsidy of the world’s most powerful sports-league cartel.”

“Stadium development has become critical even in the larger critical metro markets like DFW, where opportunistic owners like the Cowboys Jerry Jones game the system. The Cowboys had no intention of ever leaving Northeast Texas but Jones played the relocation-extortion gambit among smaller satellite city governments before moving from Irving to Arlington, a small metro-locked government that subsidized 30 percent of $1.2 billion Jerry World in 2009. The economic architecture of AT&T Stadium is designed to hermetically capture all economic gains within the venue, there is nothing left for the host City of Arlington but congestion.”

— John Vrooman, Bisnow

---

“The Raiders will be desert-locked in a small economically isolated and lopsided Las Vegas.The Broncos rule the Mountain West and the Cards now own the Southwest desert.” 

“When the Raiders leave the Bay Area, the 49ers will have NorCal locked down and that leaves the Rams and Bolts to split SoCal. There just would be no economic room for the Raiders in the Southwest desert and the Vegas market doesn’t have the size or depth to carry the club alone.”

— John Vrooman, ESPN

---

“After losing their estranged NFL teams, frustrated former NFL mid-markets have systematically overpaid in stadium subsidies several times over what they had offered to pay before their breakup with the fickle and footloose NFL cartel.”

— John Vrooman, USA Today

---

“Because of the amount of revenue sharing, the cash flow in the NFL is sure money, whereas each NHL club lives on an economic island.”

“Less than 20 percent of NFL revenue comes from the gate, compared to almost 50 percent in the NHL. Almost two-thirds of NFL revenue comes from national media, while national media is comparative chump change in the NHL.”

“If both teams perform well in Vegas and attract significant corporate season-ticket and luxury-seat clients after the two- to three-year honeymoon is over, they may even share corporate sponsors.”

“The challenge faced by the Predators was to flip their corporate/regular fan ratio from 1:2 to the 2:1 which characterizes most of the NHL teams that reside in traditional hockey markets.”

— John Vrooman, Las Vegas Review-Journal

---

“Initially the NHL’s Nashville Predators surprisingly held their own against the NFL’s Tennessee Titans, but it soon became apparent that the novelty of hockey in a non-traditional sun-belt hockey market was risky business,”

 “Both NFL and NHL teams rely heavily on the corporate client season ticket base. The problem is that almost all gate revenue in the NFL is derived from season tickets whereas only about half of the tickets sold in the NHL are season tickets. Corporate season tickets are more valuable than walk up tickets because they are more certain and inelastic with respect to winning and price.”

— John Vrooman, Yahoo Sports

---

“Some of the magic or gimmick on outdoor ice is gone. The NHL’s outdoor game is admittedly losing some of its fan buzz.”

— John Vrooman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

---

«Die NFL ist ein perfekt syndiziertes und vollständig diversifiziertes Kartell. Weil die Risiken auf der Seite der Einnahmen so ausgeglichen verteilt sind und mit festen Spielergehältern absolute Sicherheit bei den Kosten besteht, ist die Liga eine hochprofitable Geldmaschine»

«Die Ironie ist, dass ausgerechnet die wirtschaftliche Stärke der NFL zu ihrem Abstieg ins Mittelmass führen könnte. Absprachen bei den Einnahmen und den Kosten reduzieren zwar finanzielle Risiken. Sie mindern aber auch die Motivation, zu gewinnen.»

— John Vrooman, Finanz und Wirtschaft

---

“The NFL as a league is worse off with 2 teams in LA; the Bolts are probably more valuable in LA but the Rams are worse off because now they have competition from the Bolts. The Bolts fans in SD are worse off without the Bolts and the only people better off are Los Angeles football fans, who will see competition between the Rams and Bolts drive down prices.”

— John Vrooman, Washington Post / Chicago Tribune

---

“The basic rule of thumb is to move the decimal point one place to the left on impact estimates from the chamber of commerce for the tourism industry. So the true impact of the Bolts is closer to $15 million net than $150 million,” 

“This is because impact studies ignore all of the negative costs of congestion and reduction in economic activity elsewhere in the San Diego area. The sports bars will rock, but spending at the stadium stays at the stadium with the Bolts, and stadium employment is usually in low wage and seasonal jobs, not exactly the best drivers of economic development.”

— John Vrooman, San Diego Union Tribune

---

“The Jags have risen from dead last in NFL value, of $770 million, to 25th, with a Forbes value of $1.95 billion in 2016. By this most-objective measure, … Khan appears to be reversing the downward trend at the bottom line. But true above-average brand value in the NFL is only derived from steady long-term performance between the lines.”

“The Jags have increased in value by a compound rate of 8.4 percent since their inception in 1995, compared to the average NFL franchise growth of 10.6 percent. Both rates more than double the rate of growth in the S&P 500 index.”

“Much of the early decline in relative value is related to the long-term chronic lack of performance by the Jags on the field. True value in the NFL is derived from a long-term tradition of winning, and the converse is also true for losing.”

— John Vrooman, Florida Times-Union

---

“I think they (NFL) realized early that game-day attendance was not gong to be the revenue driver—it was going to be TV.”

“The NFL and TV have co-evolved.  When TV—particularly color television—took off in the sixties, the NFL was right there with it”

— John Vrooman, NPR Marketplace

---

“Kuechly is a down-home, old-school born-to-play NFL linebacker who suffered a devastating head injury that potentially shocked not only the Panther nation, but also the rest of the NFL universe,”

“Cam Newton is a new school born-to-run-and-pass Superman whose concussions have defied the obviously inconsistent and ineffective rules ostensibly designed to protect him.”

— John Vrooman, Charlotte Observer

---

“MLB has found the optimal competitive balance between large and small markets (David v. Goliath) with two teams (Cleveland Indians v. Chicago Cubs in WS 2016) built the baseball way.”

“There is something rejuvenating in the MLB season cycle that mimics life and is now culminating in a seemingly pure contest between equally matched player managers and unspoiled fan bases.”

— John Vrooman, FOX News

---

“In the name of competitive balance, the quality of the NFL game itself has also deteriorated into the random mediocrity of equally bad teams beating each other.”

 “Traditional media fan bases have suddenly shifted from devoted fans of traditional football to newer, less traditional fantasy fans who could care less about the quality of the games themselves, or the performance of any team other than their own fragmented fantasy squads.”

— John Vrooman, CBS News

---

““The key to building brand value is to solidify the season ticket/luxury seat and corporate client base through an implicit contract to win on a consistent basis.” 

“This was true for the sold-out popularity of the original Hornets and will still be true for MJ’s upstart comeback Hornets 2.0.”

— John Vrooman, Charlotte Observer

---

“As monopoly cartels, all of the leagues artificially restrict the number of franchises to inflate the asking and selling prices. As a result the final auction selling prices are systematically overvalued by about 25 percent on average.”

“If the Pens are worth an estimated $600 million, then normally the selling price could go as high as $750 million for the defending Stanley Cup champions. If no potential NHL buyers were taking the Pens’ bait at $750 million, then the Penguins are obviously overvalued by the owners and undervalued by potential investors.

“There were no bidders from the NHL-superior Seattle market at an inflated $500 million because the NHL expansion fee should have probably been in the $300 million range.”

— John Vrooman, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Czech version

---

“The economic loss of a one-time event like the NBA All-Star game is overtly embarrassing for Charlotte but amounts to small-time chump change compared to the mega-hit now being taken by the progressive economic reputation of Charlotte and ultimately all of Carolina because of Raleigh’s reactionary politics of HB2.”

— John Vrooman, Charlotte Business Journal

---

“How ironic it would be, if the mighty, macho monopoly power of the NFL cartel was ultimately taken down by the holistic, protective feminine wisdom of soccer moms united.”

 “Talk of economic cataclysm  (without the NFL) is probably exaggerated precisely because the NFL cartel is a self-contained, risk-free economic island, a natural-born automatic moneymaking machine disconnected from the cultural fabric and the economic grid.”

“New venues are hermetically sealed to capture all economic gains for the home club and the rest of the monopoly cartel. So, ironically, there would be few, if any, economic spinoffs, multipliers or indirect effects lost, because the league gets everything while it passes the stadium funding bill to local taxpayers.”

— John Vrooman, Sports illustrated

---

 “Bottom line: NHL hockey can probably survive, but not thrive in Las Vegas.”

“It’s highly doubtful the expected cash flow from hockey in the desert can justify the bloated expansion sticker price of $500 million.”

“Visitors are not coming to Vegas to watch hockey, and unstable transient fan bases do not create value in the corporate-client driven NHL.”

— John Vrooman, Las Vegas Sun

---

“The Raiders would be desert-locked in a small economically isolated and lopsided Vegas“

“The Broncos rule the Mountain West. The Cards now rule the Southwest desert. The 49ers would have NoCal locked down, and that leaves the Rams and Bolts to split SoCal.”

“There is just no economic room for the Raiders and the Las Vegas market doesn’t have the size or depth to carry the club.”

— John Vrooman, USA Today / CBS Sports

---

 “Those documents showed a profitable franchise at the same time Jerry Richardson was crying poverty in seeking Carolina cash. The Panthers and Richardson Sports LP raked in profits of $112 million in 2011 and 2012 while playing .400 football before the 180-turnaround in 2013.”

— John Vrooman, Sports Illustrated

---

“This talent depth no doubt won Lord Stanley’s Cup on the ice, but the resulting payroll structure of the Pens drives down its asset value in the open market.”

— John Vrooman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

---

“The non-traditional Las Vegas demographic is not hockey friendly. Visitors are not coming to Vegas to watch hockey and unstable transient fan bases do not create value in the corporate client driven NHL.”

— John Vrooman, Yahoo Sports

---

“It is unlikely the Chargers or the Raiders will relocate to Vegas, but if they did the NFL would consume almost all of the corporate fan base and the NHL team would be relegated to being a stepchild. Vegas is a shallow market overly dependent on the gaming and tourism industry.”

— John Vrooman, Yahoo Sports

---

“Ironically, the empty L.A. market has probably been more valuable to the NFL as the third leg in a public funding extortion triangle over the past 20 years than if a football team were in residence.”

— John Vrooman, CBS News

---

“The mega-hit already taken by the Queen City’s progressive reputation by the discriminatory and divisive NC LGBT law will be economically real and significantly larger and more tangible than the actual economic impact of the loss of a one-time event like the NBA All-Star Game.”

— John Vrooman, Charlotte Observer

---

“Men and women now receive equal prize money in all four Grand Slams, but the battle between the sexes for a shallow pool of prize money at the top seems somewhat petty when compared to the gross earnings disparity from top to bottom of both the WTA and ATP.”

— John Vrooman, The Daily Beast

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“It is entirely possible that the L.A. football market has been more valuable to the NFL empty than if it had been occupied since 1995. It is standard operating procedure for the N.F.L. commissioner and other concerned owners to drop the not-so-veiled threat of relocation to L.A.”

— John Vrooman, New York Times

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“The franchise valuation key in professional sports leagues is to solidify the season ticket base, and the best way to accomplish that is to build a credible long-term strategy toward winning.”

— John Vrooman, NBC News

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“The NFL will probably defy all pretzel logic and set the fee at $620 million or $20 million easy money-for-nothing for each non-Kroenke member of the monopoly cartel — just because they can.”

— John Vrooman, The Street

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“Depreciation tax shelters are critical in the land of the bottom line. Any good sports accountant can turn a $30 million profit into a $30 million loss with accepted accounting procedures… all consistent with the existing tax code.”

— John Vrooman, Atlanta Journal Constitution

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“The actual auction price for an NHL franchise is usually biased upward, so the price (for the Penguins) in a seller’s market could go as high or even higher than the reported asking price of $750 million. But rumors of NHL expansion have probably flipped the advantage to the buyers.”

— John Vrooman, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

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“Kroenke is the only relocation candidate that could break even on the stadium deal and still make mega-bucks over, under, around and through the Hollywood Park project. Those synergies were not there in the Carson joint venture.”

— John Vrooman, CNN Money

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“The local sports bars will probably rock, but most direct spending at the stadium stays at the stadium. The injection of new cash flow into the local economy is negligible because it’s coming at the expense of local spending someplace else.”

“The indirect spin-offs are also small because most of the spending leaks out of the economy like a sieve and so the urban/regional multipliers are usually zero, zip … nada.”

— John Vrooman, Los Angeles Daily News

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“The Rams’ relocation application to L.A. is more exaggerated and loosely fabricated than a custody battle in a messy divorce.”

— John Vrooman, Associated Press

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“It might be time to realize that St. Louis is, in fact, a two-team market and that the best economic outcome for St. Louis is to let the Rams bolt for Los Angeles and then concentrate the corporate fan base on the Blues and the beloved Cardinals.”

— John Vrooman, St. Louis Business Journal

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“Barca and Real Madrid are so intertwined in their competition that the sudden negative-sum absence of Barca would lay waste to La Liga and adversely affect twin giant Real Madrid.”

— John Vrooman, International Business Times

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“This is why a second NHL expansion team in Toronto makes perfect sense in terms of hockey fan welfare, but is not likely to happen because it would result in negative sum for internal NHL profit. The competitive economic damage to the Leafs would always exceed the gains to a second team in Hamilton.

— John Vrooman, Toronto Star

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“The history of North American professional soccer has been the pro soccer league fantasy of capturing World Cup lightning in a bottle.”

“Women’s soccer has come a long way, even if it seems to proceed in fits and starts at the rate of continental drift.”

“The appealing aspect of women’s soccer—besides US success on the world level—is that women seem to play the beautiful game the way that it is supposed to be played.”

— John Vrooman, The Daily Beast

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“Two-thirds of NFL revenue is derived from media and probably half of the TV or new digital media viewers are fantasy league players who could care less about the traditional NFL product. Welcome to the new NFL.”

— John Vrooman, Sports Illustrated / Wired

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“Geniuses see parallels that other flat-landed two-dimensional thinkers cannot see. In effect they are virtually playing in three dimensions and all other two-dimensional thought moves in slow motion.

LeBron and Michael Jordan know what their opponent is going to do before their opponent does. They think and play in another quantum dimension at a quantum speed on a whole other level.”

— John Vrooman, Pacific Standard

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“Over 40% of the current $1.15 billion annually drawn by the EPL from its overseas contracts comes from Asia. EPL is blowing away the European competition in the new pan-fanatic game of football neo-imperialism.”

“European football now has a TV rights problem that has become seriously complicated by its foreign exchange rate problem”

— John Vrooman, Fortune Magazine

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“Goldman Sachs’ job is to use, if not disguise, every public stadium funding tax shelter and loophole.”

— John Vrooman, Los Angeles Times

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“The move to L.A. is an economic no-brainer even if the Rams pay for their own stadium.”

— John Vrooman, Los Angeles Times

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“On this important and revealing issue (tax-exempt stadium bond finance), Obama ends up being the fiscally conservative responsible adult in the room.”

— John Vrooman, Buffalo News

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“It will be interesting to see if the corruption scandal is more of a FIFA negative image factor than the human rights violations in selecting World Cup host countries at issue in the scandal.”

— John Vrooman, CBS News

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“The two teams may split the stadium cost 50/50 but their mutual competition will shrink the total SoCal revenue pie regardless of their relative market share. The Raiders and Bolts are worth more as separate monopolies in separate markets than combined in L.A.”

— John Vrooman, Los Angeles Times

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“The best financial analogy would be like comparing the NFL as a well-diversified S&P index portfolio with an all-or-nothing NASDAQ roulette wheel. European football, particularly in La Liga and Serie A is make-it-or-break-it unless you are one of the top three or four clubs.”

— John Vrooman, Fortune Magazine

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“Roger Goodell is the paid enabler for the 32 lords of the NFL realm. To give this expendable front man credit for NFL’s revenue growth would be like giving the rooster credit for dawn.”

— John Vrooman, Washington Post

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“The economic weakness of the Las Vegas market is the disproportionate reliance on a now very competitive gaming industry combined with a fluid fan base. The underlying financial structure of Vegas is fragile. Almost one-half of the home mortgages are still under water.”

“The secret to success in a marginal edge sports market like Vegas is revenue certainty and the non-traditional demographic is risky business. This is particularly true in the gate dependent NHL. “

— John Vrooman, USA Today

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“Nothing (Super Bowl beer pricing) is really sacred anymore. The monopoly rule is to gouge half as many fans more than twice as much on everything.”

“The NFL will become increasingly more exclusive fewer fans having less access at higher prices to generate more certain media, venue and gate revenues.”

— John Vrooman, USA Today

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“Transfer spending is analogous to the international balance of trade, where wealthy leagues usually import more talent than lower revenue domestic leagues.”

— John Vrooman, Fortune Magazine

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“The NFL is usually considered economically untouchable, and the demand for sponsorship rights deals is highly inelastic with respect to scandal and gross misconduct. Sponsors feel fortunate to just hang with the league.”

— John Vrooman, Sports Illustrated

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“World Cups are notoriously bad economic development anchors, particularly in developing countries, and four of the last five hosting countries have lost money.”

— John Vrooman, Fortune Magazine

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“These buyers are perhaps irrational and exuberant but not altogether foolish. There is method to Ballmer’s ‘madness.’”

“About $1.6 billion of the Clippers price is sustainable investment and the extra $400 million may be what a billionaire owner with a Harvard degree in economics simply wants to pay for his NBA buzz.”

— John Vrooman, Associated Press/USA Today

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“The NFL is a well-oiled, perfectly diversified, recession- and bullet-proof, legalized cartel.”

“The violence against women problem is not new to the NFL; nor is the league’s ambivalence. This unique in-our-face episode is perhaps the beginning of a deeper accountability.”

— John Vrooman, CBC News

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“There are more hockey fans in any random block in greater Toronto than in perhaps any of the potential expansion sites.”

“Unfortunately the internal decision is made based on what is best for the league and not necessarily for the external welfare of hockey fans.”

“The league will always prefer two monopoly markets to one duopoly (two-team) market. This is because the damage to the existing team, in this case the Leafs is always greater than the increase in value to the new team.”

— John Vrooman, Toronto Star

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“Americans, like Europeans, love scandals, especially those involving fallen sports heroes, champions and especially corruption at the top of the sports pyramid.”

“Americans who were previously unaware of the shady history or even the existence of FIFA … will now be inundated with news of scandal and there is no such thing as bad publicity in the US sports market.”

— John Vrooman, Agence France Press

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“The bad news for San Diego is that both L.A. stadiums would be cash cows, but the good news for San Diego is that the Chargers would have to pony up all of the stadium costs in L.A. and the other owners in the NFL would probably tax away whatever advantage was left in the form of a hefty relocation fee in the range of $500 million.”

“The unfortunate aspect for San Diego is the public subsidy goes up as the city size goes down.”

— John Vrooman, San Diego Union-Tribune

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“The reasoning of Congress in passing the SBA (Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961) was that collective negotiations and even revenue distributions would lead to increased competitive balance in the Big 4 sports leagues. The classic behavior of a sports league cartel is to charge half as many fans twice as much.”

— John Vrooman,  Associated Press

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“The networks would be psyched for extra live playoff TV rights. Ad rates for live sports programming are exploding because of the vanishing availability of live broadcasts in the new age of streaming and fast-forward recording.”

“NFL TV rights jumped 62 percent from $127 million annually per club to $206 million per club 2014-2022; NBA rights have almost tripled; MLB rights have doubled; and NHL rights have quadrupled.”

— John Vrooman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

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“MLB clubs usually threaten to abandon ship if they don’t get the concessions that they want, but in reality they rarely do because in MLB it still matters in what market you play.”

“The good news is that MLB relocation threats are not credible, and Stuart Sternberg should be taken at his word: He will stay in the 15th largest market and bargain in good faith, because he has no superior alternative.”

— John Vrooman, Tampa Tribune

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“The NFL is economically bulletproof, and $25 billion in revenues is within reach in a dozen or so seasons, if they don’t implode from self-destructive internal governance.”

“More importantly, NFL revenue and player costs are both almost certain (because of a hard cap and extensive revenue sharing) with a value/revenue multiple of 4.8, whereas MLB is still a risky business with a multiple of 3.5.”

— John Vrooman, CBS News

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“The marginal gains to economic powerhouse football factories like Ohio State and Oregon are minimal.  Although playing in the championship game increases the visibility of both schools and in turn increases the quantity and quality of prospective student applications for admissions, it is more likely that the on‐field success of both teams is more a result of hefty booster donations rather than the cause.”

— John Vrooman, The Fiscal Times

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“The killer fact is that the 2011 BCS final was the most watched show in the history of cable TV. But it is now being replaced by both of the CFP semi-final games in the Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl. Each had about 28 million viewers.”

— John Vrooman, Dallas Morning News

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“When dealing with the NFL, it is critically important to realize that the league is more effectively diversified and risk-free through time and space than any local or regional government or sports authority in any mid-market or large market”

— John Vrooman, NPR

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“Welcome, Cuba, to a crash course in baseball capitalism.”

— John Vrooman, Pacific Standard

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“In the cash cow economics of ballpark finance, the $24 million plus buyout over 12 seasons is chump change for Rays GP Stuart Sternberg.”

“Given the economic obsolescence of the Trop and the alternative futures for the land in St. Pete, the deal cut between Stern­berg and Kriseman through 2027 is fair and reasonable.”

— John Vrooman, Tampa Tribune

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“This recent attendance collapse in South Florida is not necessarily another harbinger of the complete demise of the Sunbelt strategy. Attendance in non-traditional markets is very sensitive to the quality of the team on the ice and the Panthers are no exception.”

“So the current attendance collapse in BB&T Center in Sunrise is probably a combined result of the 2012-13 lockout and the discouraging face-plant reversal of the Panthers on the ice in 2012-13 and last season 2013-14.”

“In volatile non-traditional markets the economic solution to bottom line is usually to simply improve the quality of the product on the ice and Sunbelt fans will respond.”

— John Vrooman, Yahoo Sports

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“Unfortunately, US interest in the men’s national team peaks with the onset of the World Cup and declines thereafter.”

“As a result, US fan interest cycles in sync with the major international competitions and is never fully internalised in our domestic leagues. The breakthrough in US soccer is still probably a generation away”.

“In spite of all the challenges facing domestic club competition and league development in the US, it is entirely possible – if not likely given the nature of the tournament process – that the US will contend for a World Cup by Qatar 2022.”

— John Vrooman, Financial Times

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“The leagues have obviously already decided to join the fantasy gaming competition and its exploding cash flow rather than fighting it.”

“The same now appears to be becoming true for legalized sports betting in the not-so-distant future.”

— John Vrooman, Business Week

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“The nontraditional, more Southern sun-belt markets have enjoyed some success, but attendance is very volatile and heavily dependent on the quality of the product on the ice. This is not so much the case in the traditional (Original 6) markets particularly in Canada.”

— John Vrooman, CBS News

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“It is not altogether clear that the tax-exempt status gives the NFL an additional advantage in the credit market, but it sure looks that way. This seems to be the only real financial reason for the NFL league office to keep its tax exempt status in the face of now-troubling P.R.”

— John Vrooman, Bloomberg

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“The advantage of PSLs is that they shift the cost of new stadiums to the fans who are the people who actually benefit from the team and the stadium, as opposed to the general state, local and federal taxpayers who will never benefit from the project.”

— John Vrooman, Buffalo News

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“The league and its sponsors are an uniquely elite gentlemen’s club, and the Super Bowl has become a year-end gala for all insiders to celebrate. All of its inside sponsors enjoy the simple association with the most powerful league in the world.”

“Soon we will be barraged with feel-good sponsor ads touting a deeper respect for women and celebrating their clever acumen as NFL fans, but the NFL shield is now transparent, and the powerful league and its owners have lost something more important in this episode that they may never recover. We have all been diminished in the process.”

— John Vrooman, Sports Illustrated

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“When Superman (MLSE) speaks the league listens. An expansion club inside GTA cannot compensate the (Toronto) Leafs and the NHL for the reduction in value that they will cause MLSE and the league,”

— John Vrooman, Toronto Star

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“The stadium revolution is now coming around for the second circle, and the Bills will have to get on board in Buffalo or move to a new venue in Toronto,” 

“Soon Jerry Jones and the parade of other ‘egalitarian’ owners will show up in Buffalo just like they did in Minneapolis and Indy and other mid-markets to encourage public support (read public spending) for a new venue.”

— John Vrooman, Buffalo News

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Pegulas and the Toronto group, which is headed by Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment executive Larry Tannenbaum  appear to be the only local heroes with enough big boy pop to pull it off.” 

“There may be silent bidders in this auction, but this is real big boy football, and the bidders with enough chips to play the game are few.”

— John Vrooman, Buffalo News

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“Trump is probably blowing smoke, so his prospects (buying the Bills) are dim.”

— John Vrooman, Buffalo News

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“The NFL is a perfect portfolio.”

— John Vrooman, The Economist

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