Come See Us

On a crisp afternoon in late September, thousands of ordinary people drive hundreds of miles from home in order to witness what they believe will ultimately be a sporting event that will go down in the record books. As fans enter the packed parking lot, their eyes light up as the enormous structure that is known as Arrowhead Stadium stands starkly above them against the autumn sky. When they come to a stop in the parking lot, their clocks reads 11:00, two hours until kickoff. They excitedly exit their vehicles and open their trunks to reveal grills, and great times ahead. These ordinary people begin to continue the legacy of pre-game tailgating, a rich tradition that encourages fans to meet up with total strangers with only one thing in common: Football. Yet, what seems on the surface to be simply about an experience, of watching great plays and rooting for one’s team, is in fact a complex business arrangement which is based on the concept of making money. Indeed, “Since professional sports began, running a team has always been a reasonable investment” (DeMause VII). Just as each team implements a certain series of plays to score, each franchise implements a series of strategies to draw in the average fan. What may seem like a satisfying Nathan’s Hot Dog, and an ice cold Pepsi in the fans’ eyes, is the product of complex calculations about profitability made in a business office nowhere near the events on the field. Professional sports generally, and the National Football League specifically, are not what they seem to be from a fan’s perspective.

As the players from Kansas City march onto the field for the opening kickoff and the pre-game celebrations come to an end, the fans begin to settle in, allowing their team to focus on t...

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...s to have a team that consists of star players and a winning record. If a team is lucky enough to have all of that, that would only be a tie. To fully win this game, they need more than just a stadium and a team. They need to acquire as many night games as possible and without fans that are willing to buy team merchandise no team will have a chance to become the team of legend. Only with a combination of the above tactics can a team truly maximize the team profit and substantially increase the fan base.