SideLion Report » 2011 » May » 11

Economic Impact of the Lockout

Ross Husson — Wed, 11 May 2011 20:09:16 +0000

Besides losing football, the NFL Lockout will hurt the local economies of cities that host a team. Every game there are stadium workers, hotels that house visiting fans, bars making money from pregame festivities, and much more. If there is not a season, every city with an NFL team will lose around 160 million dollars to their economy. Around the whole league, that amounts to 4.9 billion dollars. During the regular season, the NFL will lose an estimated 400 million each week in ticket sales. For every NFL city, 3000 jobs which will be lost which is 96,000 jobs league wide.
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More Questions Around Lockout

Wed, 11 May 2011 17:00:11 +0000

It started with the NFL draft. That excitement you get right around the start of preseason. That warm comforting feeling knowing football is right around the corner and every Sunday is like Christmas morning. Normally around this time of year I’m completely in tune with the baseball season. But since the Draft I have lost all interest in other sports other than football. Baseball has suddenly become boring, I’m starting to care less and less about my fantasy baseball team, and the NBA playoffs have very little affect on me. I guess my football addition has gotten to the point where nothing else seems to fill the void as football does. It’s my sports drug of choice. This year unlike others, Sunday’s still have not felt the same since football ended. I wake up with excitement that I have on a Fall Sunday, only to come to realization that it’s May and chances are I’ll be mowing the lawn instead of sitting on the couch with beers screaming at the Lions’ game.

While I’m still confident the NFL lockout will get resolved. The thing that worries about the lockout is that the players and owners will not resume talks until mid July. If the owners and players continue to disagree about the new CBA who knows how long it will go into the season. Even worse, the longer this ordeal continues more preparation time is wasted. Coaches and players haven’t had contact with each other since March, with the exception of draft week. I’m worried that the progress the Lions are making will slow to a halt if this labor issue continues past September and into late fall.

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Getting to Know the Detroit Lions 2011 Opponents: Cincinnati Bengals

Zac Snyder — Wed, 11 May 2011 14:02:50 +0000

With the NFL draft behind us and a lockout raging on, the opportunities to talk about real football are becoming fewer and fewer. That being the case, I have sought out bloggers that cover teams that the Lions will play in the 2011 season to get a glimpse into what is going on with those teams.

Granted, this exercise presumes that no games will be lost due to the lockout. That might be a big step of faith, especially in regards to the preseason games, but I have a hard time operating under any other assumption. I know what happens when one assumes, let’s hope the labor situation doesn’t prove the old saying true. These Q&As aren’t meant to be any sort of game preview, it is obviously way too early for that. The subject teams may end up looking much different when the Lions play them compared to how they look now, but I anticipate this being a good introduction to each teams’ hopes, fears, needs, expectations, etc.

The Lions are slated to begin preseason games against the Cincinnati Bengals. I was able to send some questions to Cody Byers, the editor at Stripe Hype, and he was kind enough to provide responses. Here we go…

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