No offense to Buffalo and Kansas City, but if you’re a fan of the other 30 teams in the NFL, then you might want to root for the Bills or Chiefs who lose this weekend in the divisional round to Cincinnati or Jacksonville, respectively.
It’s not personal; a Josh Allen-Patrick Mahomes AFC title game would be incredible.
It’s just that if Chiefs-Bills come to fruition, the NFL will hold the AFC Championship Game for the first time at a neutral venue, Atlanta’s Mercedes Benz Stadium. This was necessitated by the cancellation of the Buffalo-Cincinnati game after Bill’s safety Damar Hamlin collapsed.
The NFL did not believe that home field advantage could be reasonably determined as Buffalo played one fewer game than KC. (The other three potential matchups would run normally — Jacksonville in Buffalo, Cincinnati in Kansas City, or Jacksonville in Cincinnati.)
Conveniently or not, it also offers the NFL a chance to test out a concept that would undoubtedly prove profitable to the league at the expense of many loyal fans and home markets.
On Friday, the league sent out a celebratory statement about how season ticket holders from both teams were buying 50,000 tickets a day for the game in Atlanta, when it takes place. The press release announced that the Chiefs and Bills were working with “Season Ticket Members to provide priority access, subject to availability.”
The league is clearly excited about a game that might not even take place, and if all you care about is revenue (and this is the NFL we’re talking about), it makes sense.
As ProFootballTalk’s Mike Florio said, “the groundwork continues to be laid for the NFL’s next strategy to … squeeze more golden eggs from the goose.”
See, NFL playoff games are generally incredible experiences. They are almost impossible to mess up. You could play it on a high school field in Alaska and it would be fine.
However, they are never allowed to leave the home stadium of the higher-ranked team.
The reasons are many, even before we consider how bland sites only work for the corporate world and the richest of fans.
• A neutral site conference championship game diminishes the importance of a regular season that has already been diminished by the lengthening season. The home court value in the title game, along with a bye in the first round, is a reward for the No. 1 seed. The NFL can’t take that away.
• The atmosphere at the Super Bowl neutral site almost always lacks the unbridled passion of a home game. While having fans from both teams can cause some back and forth, there are also more casual fans and corporate ticket holders. And the revelry of pregame tailgates can’t be duplicated.
• Taking the game out of the home markets is a great loss to those communities, including local businesses and stadium employees. In choosing Atlanta, the NFL indicated that the decision on where to host neutral championship games could follow the general principles of Super Bowl selections, i.e., warm-weather venues or domes in certain cities.
NFL stadiums are almost always paid for with public funds. It’s a lopsided deal, but one of the few financial recoveries is that game days generate huge revenue. Such a big take away from, say, Western New York, where a new Bills stadium will bring in some $850 million in taxpayers’ money, not to mention some locals travel to spend discretionary money in another city to give is a brutal bait and switch.
But it’s mostly about the fans.
The NFL is already the only major professional league to host its championship in a neutral venue. In the other sports, a fan can know by buying season tickets that he will have the chance to see the last game, or at least parts of the last series, in front of him.
That’s not the case with the NFL, where only the most affluent fans can afford to travel to the Super Bowl. Taking the semifinals away from local fans and making two more mini-Super Bowls only compound the problem.
One of the best things about the NFL is that season ticket packages are relatively affordable. The average subscription price for 2022 in Buffalo was $113. Counting an average of 10 regular and preseason games and a pack ($1,113) is achievable for many working and middle-class fans. And that’s the average. Cheaper options are available.
Yes, there are parking fees, seat licensing fees, and more, but it’s better than having to buy 40 or so NBA or NHL games, let alone up to 81 in MLB.
Still, those average fans are the ones most likely to be priced out of the rare championship game. When professional sports teams start talking about “priority access,” they’re talking about customers buying the most expensive seats and/or willing to pay extra to be considered “priority.”
If the NFL shared its 50,000 priority tickets with Kansas City and Buffalo season ticket holders, each team would get about 25,000 seats. Yet the Bills, for example, have 60,000 subscriptions.
This is the NFL taking care of the customers who pay the most (usually club-level ticket holders) at two franchises, while keeping the majority of season ticket holders, who pay less, out of the action. That’s a lot of unprioritized customers.
That increases the value — and potential cost — for “priority access” that any team can charge fans. Neutral site games may also allow for a segment of company or league controlled seats, host city bidding concessions, and other sponsorships.
But not only would you have to spend to get “priority access”, you would also have to spend money to travel to the neutral site game, including the chance of missing work the next day. And if you don’t have a season ticket but you want to splurge on the big game, add in the travel costs as well.
Many people will gladly do so – no one denies the question.
It just won’t be the middle-class or working-class fan who dutifully attends games week after week, year after year, hoping their team hosts the occasional championship game.
