NFL in Austin, TX

[hotdogPi]

I have no problem with a team being in a medium-sized city. For example, if there was a team in St. George, UT instead of Las Vegas, its fanbase would still include Las Vegas (and might gain Salt Lake City), and Fort Smith, AR or the Northwest Arkansas metro instead of Oklahoma City, Tulsa, or Little Rock would get fans from both Oklahoma and Arkansas. The problem is when there are two teams too close to each other in a market that's not NYC or LA, or if it's empty enough that even if it had everything closest to it, it would still be almost nothing (a team in MT that's too far from Salt Lake City would get at maximum ID, WY, ND, SD, eastern WA and OR, and western NE – this is only 6 million excluding Canada, but including Spokane, Fargo, and Sioux Falls that are not even guaranteed to root for the Montana team).

[thspfc]

I have no problem with a team being in a medium-sized city. For example, if there was a team in St. George, UT instead of Las Vegas, its fanbase would still include Las Vegas (and might gain Salt Lake City), and Fort Smith, AR or the Northwest Arkansas metro instead of Oklahoma City, Tulsa, or Little Rock would get fans from both Oklahoma and Arkansas. The problem is when there are two teams too close to each other in a market that's not NYC or LA, or if it's empty enough that even if it had everything closest to it, it would still be almost nothing (a team in MT that's too far from Salt Lake City would get at maximum ID, WY, ND, SD, eastern WA and OR, and western NE – this is only 6 million excluding Canada, but including Spokane, Fargo, and Sioux Falls that are not even guaranteed to root for the Montana team).

You also have to consider how far people are willing to drive from. I bet 80% of the people going to Packers games are coming from Wisconsin, so it's a max 2-3 hour drive for them.
And about that. The first time I went to a Packers game was in 2013. It was in November against the Vikings. The game went to overtime and ended in a tie. Traffic leaving Green Bay was so bad that I was able to watch several minutes of the Cowboys/Giants game by looking out the car window at a TV inside of a bar while stopped at a red light for forever. I think there should be a connector freeway from the Lambeau parking lot to I-41.

[triplemultiplex]

I think there should be a connector freeway from the Lambeau parking lot to I-41.

I don't think even the Packers have enough clout to get that done.  Besides, what would it do the other 357 days of the year.

Your mistake was leaving right after the game.  No reason to do that; might as well sit back an enjoy a post-game tailgate.  That's why one always throws in a few sodas or teas or something when they pack for a Lambeau trip; so they can post-game and still keep the driver sober.

It's beside the point, really since the actual parking lots don't come close to accommodating all of the vehicles that are there.  I've never parked at an official Lambeau Field parking lot before.  I've parked at a funeral home, a motel, the Shopko (before they tore it down) and of course, someone's lawn.  It is a handsome income stream for anyone who owns property within walking distance of the stadium.

[oscar]

The parking situation at Lambeau somewhat resembles that for the Carolina Panthers' stadium in downtown Charlotte. The "official" parking at the Panthers' stadium is very small. But there are over 30,000 spaces within walking distance of the stadium, including downtown office buildings with parking garages well-used during the week but with lots of space available on weekends.

One of my ex-bosses, who went on to work in one of those office buildings, explained that his monthly parking contract had an exclusion for Panthers weekday night games (Monday and Thursday evenings). He had to either go home on those game nights, or leave his car there and pay the special game rate.

[ilpt4u]

The parking situation at Lambeau somewhat resembles that for the Carolina Panthers' stadium in downtown Charlotte. The "official" parking at the Panthers' stadium is very small. But there are over 30,000 spaces within walking distance of the stadium, including downtown office buildings with parking garages well-used during the week but with lots of space available on weekends.

One of my ex-bosses, who went on to work in one of those office buildings, explained that his monthly parking contract had an exclusion for Panthers weekday night games (Monday and Thursday evenings). He had to either go home on those game nights, or leave his car there and pay the special game rate.

Comparisons are made also between Lambeau and Wrigley Field, since both are basically in the middle of a neighborhood, and both have all sorts of "creative"  options for private parties selling parts of their parking lot or driveway or yard for parking

Of course, Wrigley being right at a Red Line "L"  stop basically enables anywhere along the Red Line a parking spot to go to the game, and since most of the Downtown Metra Terminals are within walking distance of the State Street Subway/the Red Line, Public Transport is a good way to get to Cubs games, too

[AlexandriaVA]

Wasn't there a time that the Packer would play a slate of home games in Milwaukee, where I presume most of their fans are?

[NWI_Irish96]

Wasn't there a time that the Packer would play a slate of home games in Milwaukee, where I presume most of their fans are?

Used to be 1 game per year up through the mid-90s.

[Bobby5280]

Nowadays Nashville is booming and Memphis is a declining dump.

Even if Memphis didn't have its various problems (lots of poverty, crime, etc) the market would still be too small to support an NFL team. They're in the same position as other medium size metros like OKC and Tulsa or Salt Lake.

I have no problem with a team being in a medium-sized city. For example, if there was a team in St. George, UT instead of Las Vegas, its fanbase would still include Las Vegas (and might gain Salt Lake City), and Fort Smith, AR or the Northwest Arkansas metro instead of Oklahoma City, Tulsa, or Little Rock would get fans from both Oklahoma and Arkansas.

Any new NFL market would need a MSA population of at least 2 million or more people. There is only a few such places in the US like that which don't already have an NFL team. Oklahoma City has an MSA population of 1.4 million (#41 in the US). Tulsa's MSA is just under 1 million (#55). Little Rock has around 750,000 MSA and while the NW Arkansas region is booming, its MSA pop is 530,000. That's not big enough for any top level sports team, much less the NFL. OKC is a big enough market to support an NBA team. IIRC, the Chesapeake Energy Arena in OKC was built initially as an attempt to lure an NHL team. It's a good place to see a concert. One thing I'm sure of is an NFL team would have little trouble selling luxury sky boxes in OKC. But good luck getting the city's taxpayers (or state's taxpayers) to fund the stadium. I think there's not enough of a working class fan base to support an NFL team in OKC. The proximity to Dallas is another problem.

Football fans are going to drive only so far to see a game live inside the stadium and/or tailgate in the parking lots. In the scenario that OKC got an NFL team I wouldn't expect a great deal of traffic coming from cities like Tulsa, Fort Smith or Little Rock.

Another BIG issue with NFL teams is the size of local TV markets. All the broadcast rights issues is a money thing. A major media market is going to generate more ratings, more advertising revenue, etc. It turns things like the stadium naming rights into a more lucrative angle. An NFL team isn't going to have such prospects of raking in the "cheddar" building a stadium in a city like Des Moines or Fargo.

In the Las Vegas area, they built Allegiant Stadium exactly where it needed to be: just across I-15 from the Vegas Strip. St George, UT is a bedroom community in a very religiously conservative state.

[NWI_Irish96]

I know this is all fictional because the NFL isn't expanding anytime soon, but a 2nd team in Chicago would do better than most of the locations being floated.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

I have no problem with a team being in a medium-sized city. For example, if there was a team in St. George, UT instead of Las Vegas, its fanbase would still include Las Vegas (and might gain Salt Lake City), and Fort Smith, AR or the Northwest Arkansas metro instead of Oklahoma City, Tulsa, or Little Rock would get fans from both Oklahoma and Arkansas. The problem is when there are two teams too close to each other in a market that's not NYC or LA, or if it's empty enough that even if it had everything closest to it, it would still be almost nothing (a team in MT that's too far from Salt Lake City would get at maximum ID, WY, ND, SD, eastern WA and OR, and western NE – this is only 6 million excluding Canada, but including Spokane, Fargo, and Sioux Falls that are not even guaranteed to root for the Montana team).

Half of the appeal of playing in Vegas is that it's Vegas. There is no comparison to them being in Vegas and being in St. George, or Paragonah, or Littleton. AZ.

[thspfc]

I know this is all fictional because the NFL isn't expanding anytime soon, but a 2nd team in Chicago would do better than most of the locations being floated.

Have you seen the issues the White Sox have been facing lately?

The fact of the matter is, there's not a single place in the country right now where a new NFL team could succeed. Some existing teams struggled with attendance before the pandemic.

[Bobby5280]

Prior to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic some existing NFL teams were dealing with attendance issues due to political issues (fan blowback from players kneeling during the National Anthem), but the attendance drop off wasn't as bad as media outlets tried to describe it. Attendance levels also rise and fall based on any individual team's level of success.

[Big John]

Wasn't there a time that the Packer would play a slate of home games in Milwaukee, where I presume most of their fans are?

Used to be 1 game per year up through the mid-90s.

1 preseason, and 3 regular season games.

[Life in Paradise]

Prior to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic some existing NFL teams were dealing with attendance issues due to political issues (fan blowback from players kneeling during the National Anthem), but the attendance drop off wasn't as bad as media outlets tried to describe it. Attendance levels also rise and fall based on any individual team's level of success.

The other problem with the NFL (all sports and television are in the same boat) is that even though ratings are very high compared to other television shows, even the NFL's ratings have markedly declined over the past decade.  You can state it's related to political speech, but just about all broadcast/cable programming is having the same issue.  Fewer eyes watching means less reasons for an advertiser to pony up the big money. 

Truth is, Austin/San Antonio would be one of the best non-served markets for the NFL if they could come up with a way to best monetize in person viewing (higher number of seats/suites), plus two good metros in close proximity (less than 80 miles from downtown to downtown).

[mgk920]

Wasn't there a time that the Packer would play a slate of home games in Milwaukee, where I presume most of their fans are?

Used to be 1 game per year up through the mid-90s.

There were three games in Milwaukee, plus a pre-season game, every year.

As for post-game traffic, once I-41 is upgraded to six lanes between De Pere and Appleton (planned for construction in the 2025-2030 time span)....



Mike

[NWI_Irish96]

I know this is all fictional because the NFL isn't expanding anytime soon, but a 2nd team in Chicago would do better than most of the locations being floated.

Have you seen the issues the White Sox have been facing lately?

The fact of the matter is, there's not a single place in the country right now where a new NFL team could succeed. Some existing teams struggled with attendance before the pandemic.

Attendance is such a small piece of revenue anymore. TV revenue and the high-dollar suites and boxes are what bring in most of the revenue.

[RobbieL2415]

I know this is all fictional because the NFL isn't expanding anytime soon, but a 2nd team in Chicago would do better than most of the locations being floated.

What about El Paso? That puts a team between Dallas and Phoenix and more of a home team for NM residents.

[hotdogPi]

I know this is all fictional because the NFL isn't expanding anytime soon, but a 2nd team in Chicago would do better than most of the locations being floated.

What about El Paso? That puts a team between Dallas and Phoenix and more of a home team for NM residents.

El Paso would get NM, a decent amount of population on the Mexican side of the border that probably doesn't care about American football, Lubbock, possibly the Rio Grande Valley, and probably not San Antonio or Austin because they're closer to DFW and Houston than they are to El Paso.

Total scores so far, counting the number of congressional districts that would be in its territory:
San Antonio/Austin: 12 (10 in TX and 2 in NM)
El Paso: 10 (6 in TX, 3 in NM, 1 in AZ), and that assumes the Rio Grande Valley is included despite not being the closest
Montana including Salt Lake City: 9 (3 in UT, 2 in ID, 1 in OR, WA, MT, WY)
Birmingham, assuming college football doesn't interfere: 9 (6 in AL, 3 in MS)
Albuquerque: 8 (4 in TX, 3 in NM, 1 in AZ)
Northwest Arkansas: 8 (4 in OK, 3 in AR, 1 in MO)
Memphis: 8 (3 in AR, 2 in TN, 2 in MS, 1 in MO)
Council Bluffs, IA: 7 (4 in IA, 2 in NE, 1 in SD)
Norfolk: 6 (4 in VA and 2 in NC)
San Juan: 4 (all 4 in PR)

I can't directly compare a second Chicago team to a team that far away from all other teams.

[CoreySamson]

I know this is all fictional because the NFL isn't expanding anytime soon, but a 2nd team in Chicago would do better than most of the locations being floated.

What about El Paso? That puts a team between Dallas and Phoenix and more of a home team for NM residents.

On that note, how about Albuquerque? That's a really large metro area with no pro teams, and it doesn't seem locals are especially attached to any existing NFL team.

[texaskdog]

Austin does have a AAA baseball team, the Round Rock Express -which is currently the AAA team for the Texas Rangers. Oklahoma City used to be home to the Rangers' AAA team (the Redhawks). The affiliations between the Redhawks went back and forth between the Rangers and Houston Astros. IIRC, Nolan Ryan had something to do with the Round Rock Express taking over as the Rangers' AAA team.

He made that happen when he was president of the Rangers. There was a time when major league teams were trying to get their AAA and AA franchises closer to home so the execs could pop in more frequently to watch prospects.

The OKC AAA team is now the Dodgers, obviously affiliated with the LA Dodgers. I think OKC should have kept the Redhawks name.

Agreed. I understand the Dodgers' desire to cross-brand but I miss the names with local flavor. Bring back the 89ers!!

Dodgers is a ridiculous name for OKC

[texaskdog]

I don't think it will come to a team moving.  I think it will all start rolling in  the next CBA talk in 2022.  That has been the earmarked "let's put a team in London" discussion time, since the owners have been happy with the current 32 team format.  The powers that be feel that "happiness" will come to an end in 2022 and the London team might become a reality. If you are gonna add a team, you have to add another to keep the balance in the divisions (in theory).

If the NFL were to add new teams to the existing 32 they would have to add at least four teams in order to maintain balanced conferences and divisions. And even in that scenario the league would have to go through a re-alignment, cutting the number of divisions from 8 to 6. They would have to go from 32 teams to 40 in order to have 8 balanced divisions across 2 conferences.

Yep.  As interesting as it would be seeing the NFL expand from 32 to 40, consider that in the 50+ years since the AFL/NFL merger, the NFL has gone from 26 to 32 teams.

Where would those 8 additional NFL cities come from?

Outside the Lower 48: London, Mexico City, Honolulu
Previous NFL cities: St. Louis, Oakland, San Diego
Major metro areas without a team: San Antonio/Austin, OKC/Tulsa

Where else could a team go?  Memphis?  Less likely if St. Louis gets a team back.  Sacramento?  Less likely if Oakland gets a team back.  A second team in Chicago?  Portland OR?  Salt Lake City?  Birmingham AL?  Columbus OH?  Little Rock?  Des Moines?  None of those seem any more likely than the first eight I listed.

I'd love to see the NFL go to 40 teams,  I just don't see it happening any time soon.

I could see them going to 36.  So many options: San Antonio, Portland, Sacramento, Orlando would be my top 4 choices

[thspfc]

I know this is all fictional because the NFL isn't expanding anytime soon, but a 2nd team in Chicago would do better than most of the locations being floated.

What about El Paso? That puts a team between Dallas and Phoenix and more of a home team for NM residents.

On that note, how about Albuquerque? That's a really large metro area with no pro teams, and it doesn't seem locals are especially attached to any existing NFL team.

We're going lower and lower with each new post in this thread.

I'm asking: for once, can we use our brains to think?

[thspfc]

I actually think Albert Lea MN and Salina KS would be really good places to add a team because that would give all 6 people who live in those places a team to root for. Plus the Interstate junctions in those places make for really good control cities. Also, I-97 should be a 3di and I-99 is out of the grid

[I-55]

I actually think Albert Lea MN and Salina KS would be really good places to add a team because that would give all 6 people who live in those places a team to root for. Plus the Interstate junctions in those places make for really good control cities. Also, I-97 should be a 3di and I-99 is out of the grid

You forgot Benson, NC. That way people would have a little more context behind that control city. Maybe even put another one in Lake City FL while we're at it.


On a serious note:
Austin/SA - 7/10 would recommend.

[Bobby5280]

The other problem with the NFL (all sports and television are in the same boat) is that even though ratings are very high compared to other television shows, even the NFL's ratings have markedly declined over the past decade.  You can state it's related to political speech, but just about all broadcast/cable programming is having the same issue.  Fewer eyes watching means less reasons for an advertiser to pony up the big money.

Viewers do have more choices than ever. 30 years ago a major OTA broadcast network (NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX) would have needed close to a 20 share average in ratings to beat other networks for a weekly total or for one of the sweeps periods. Today a network can win with under a 10 share. The viewing base is so fractured that cable networks can edge out OTA broadcast networks from time to time. Add in all the cord cutting, streaming services, other web-based video outlets and the audience base gets divided some more. DVRs and time-shifting add another problem: fewer viewers watching the show live and then fast-forwarding thru the commercials later.

Getting people to attend NFL games in person is a tricky thing. I think I'd rather drink a glass of bleach than attend a Dallas Cowboys game in person. It's a pain getting there. And the sheer price-gouging for everything from parking to bottled water is insane. I'd rather watch the game from the comfort of my home on my 65" TV set. I didn't always have a bad attitude toward attending NFL games in person. The cost of watching a normal season game wasn't always so costly either.

El Paso would get NM, a decent amount of population on the Mexican side of the border that probably doesn't care about American football, Lubbock, possibly the Rio Grande Valley, and probably not San Antonio or Austin because they're closer to DFW and Houston than they are to El Paso.

El Paso is not a big enough market for an NFL team, much less any other top tier sports team. The El Paso MSA is 845,000. Including Las Cruces gets the CSA just over a million. An NFL teams needs a market at least double that size. BTW, Albuquerque is not nearly big enough either.