A fresh look at the NFL protests

We near the end of the Great Football Protest saga, thank Howard.  People celebrate the mighty boycott dropping ticket sales 31%,  which would be big except only about 20% of NFL ticket sales are single-game, so that makes 31% of 20%, or about 6%, which a lot of teams (NY Giants, for example) would likely be seeing by now anyway.  Roger Goodell goes from "The league stands for its players' rights of expression- as long as they support PC causes", to "Y'all should stand for the National Anthem- pretty please?"  And Budweiser tells the world (without really saying anything) that it is VERY concerned over what's going on.


As well they should be.  They could conceivably come out as the big corporate winners, with a little imagination.

I have looked at study after study tonight, and they all confirm what common sense tell me- there's NO, zero, nada correlation between that Bud Light ad you just watched for the fifth time in one game and the desire to pound at the doors of your neighborhood liquor store on Sunday, damning to hell the inventor of "blue laws".  TV ads simply do not increase beer buying.  At best, they talk you out of a Silver Bullet in favor of a Sam Adams.

But there is something that will.  Bear with me.


Based on an advertising price guide I found in my research, an advertiser (say Bud), buying 5 ads each on each of the week's 16 games will spend $12.3 million on 9 early Sunday games, $13 mil on 4 late afternoon games, $2 and a quarter million for Monday Night, $2.8 mill for Thursday night, and $3.5 million for Sunday Night.  That gives us a total of nearly $34 million a week.  Now, let's say that Anheuser Busch decides, as a public service, to pull all those ads, that really weren't getting them any sales anyway.  What to do with that 34 million?


Well, how about this:  The average price of a new car is said to be $34,500.  A-B could buy 981 new cars with that moolah.  Now say they ran an IN-Stadium promotion.  Divvying up would give you 16 cars per stadium.  Put 16 little stickers that say, "car", and a whole bunch that don't, on the bottoms of all the plastic cups and aluminum cans sold.  You get a winner, you get a car.

"Damn, dude, you know what a run on beer that would make?"

You betcha.  Beer sales would at least triple... from an estimated (in one place) 300 gallons a game, to say 1,000 gallons.   Now one might wanna consider the limited return on investment here- my sources are estimating A-B would be charging a minimum of $7 a can/cup for what cost them 40 cents- so they would be making about $74,000 or so on a $4200 beer investment.  Great for you and me, but enough for the purchase, delivery, etc, etc involved?  Who knows?  Still, that would come pretty close to $19 million or so a year pure profit...


But even a limited return is better than what they currently get on a $50 billion industry-wide yearly investment.   God know the beer vendors and concessions stands would make out, the city would see a rash of new game-day employment,  no doubt cabbies would love it, and the NFL would get a burst of great PR, at least until the amount of DUI fatalities crept upward.


But the best part?  Not only would a lot of the fans still hate the protesters, but the networks, who did such a fine job of blowing the whole mess out of all proportion, would reap the whirlwind as the re-directed advertising dollars flew out of their pockets, thus giving them a negative return for instigating this crap in the first place.


Chris!  Chris, wake up!  You're dreaming!  Think a moment.  A-B has spent the last fifteen years or so literally sitting on their hands while craft breweries whittle away their market share with superior product.  Do you really think they would willingly stop peeing all that money down the drain?


AND, now you are talking fans that are twice as drunk as usual, hating on the players that kneel during the anthem... You realize what that would mean...


Yes, I do.  Within a couple weeks, the players would be "scared straight" and things could get back to normal.


Sigh.  I really hope no one takes this serious...