Impact of Benson’s death on the Saints
I wonder how great an investment a NFL Franchise really is right now. With the lagging ratings (yes still more than any other sport), I'm thinking the days of non-stop double digit growth in value is over.
So if you have a $1.5 billion asset (out of the realm for 99.9% to even fathom) a "profit" of $100 million is like 7%... I'm not sure teams are even profiting $100 million... so you look at long term value growth (Tom's original $35 million investment grew quite nicely).
At some point Gayle will sit down with her financial advisors and say where can I put my $1.5 billion that might grow better? Does she have the loyalty to the region that Tom did?
Just some thoughts
While the NFL had seen a ratings dip, it’s less than the dip all media has had. It is still the single most popular entity.
To think an nfl team doesn’t make a huge chunk of cash a year is nonsense. Green Bay does very well financially and they are more limited than most. You may balk at say 100 million, but it’s a year after year investment. There are only 32 of them. Prestige goes far beyond the income stream.
Also, I wish I could find the posting about how there is common ownership stock and decision making stock for the saints and who owned what from a couple years ago. Makes me think that Benson put the future of the franchise together in such a way that no one person has complete control anyway.
The face and overall owner is Gayle. However, as far as the saints corporation who knows. Lots of ways to put that together. The NFL has put a lot into the Saints post Katrina. They want the stability and I’m sure all the lawyers involved accomplished that.
It would be as simple as giving Gayle all the common non voting stock so she owns the team and corporation. Then the voting stock gets split between Gayle, Lauscha, whoever is running the legal arm of Benson’s corporation, Loomis, whoever. Make those stocks only transferable to the next person in the position by merit so they really hold no value, but total value. Therefore, whoever owns the team couldn’t sell it anyway without agreement of the controlling stock, which would be charged with whatever mission statement Benson set forth. That way there is an owner for the NFL, a stable power structure and a well run team that is pretty solid in the New Orleans area.
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