NFL Economics: Record Low In Kansas City -23 Degrees
Some of the 76,000 seats in Arrowhead Stadium may be empty for today’s playoff, and concession sales may drop by tens of thousands of dollars, but it will hardly matter because of how the NFL works. The league’s money machine is not about the crowd at one game, so the fact that prices per seat have dropped to $50 will not matter.
It will be about zero degrees F at the start of the game between the Kansas City Chief and Miami Dolphins. It has been colder. It was -23 degrees F on December 22, 1989, the record low in Kansas City history. That could have been cold enough to move the game to Miami. But, other than the psychology of home-field advantage, the stadium ticket money will not matter.
Chief’s Revenue
The Chiefs get about $400 million annually from the NFL in a package known as “national revenue.” Teams bring about $250 million yearly in ticket sales and concessions on average. Much of this is for luxury boxes, according to Forbes. Season tickets account for most ticket revenue, so empty seats are mostly “paid for.” Seats sold on the secondary market do not affect team revenue. Concessions take a hit when seats are empty, but the Chiefs will not lose munch for a single game.
For the Chief, annual revenue is about $550 million on which the team makes about $100 million. The Chiefs are one of the least valuable teams in the NFL at $4.3 billion. None of these numbers are affected by a game in which seats are not full.
It will be remarkably cold today in Kansas City, but the owners of the Chiefs won’t care.
