Economist: NFL Lockout Would Make for $20 Million in Lost Economic Activity per Game on Average

Operator:We now have a follow up question from the line of Mark Zinno with 105.7 Baltimore. Please go ahead.

Mark Zinno:Gentlemen, I have seen you point to this unemployment rate a couple of times and I guess just again playing devil’s advocate and forgive the pointed nature of this question, but if the Players Association and the league are both trying to make their points to the public to say, “This is where we stand and this is where we stand,” and kind of I guess for lack of a better term curry favor with the public to say, “Come on our side or come on our side,” the idea that the NFL is – the NFL union is a bunch of blue collar pauper kind of guys who are hard hat lunch pail guys who go to work every day, it almost is kind of I guess at least to me a little bit insulting from the standpoint that, I mean, this is a million – multi-million dollar union with a lot of rich people in it.

And I guess to say that it’s hard for me as a blue collar guy myself to look at it and say, “Okay, well these guys are painting this picture that because they’re out of work they’re going to be struggling to make ends meet.”

And maybe some of the smaller guys in the union, some of the lesser paid guys in the league may because they haven’t been around that long and haven’t had that big paycheck yet, but I guess again I’m not trying to accuse anybody of anything but I’m just saying like when I look at it on the surface, it seems like you’re trying to paint the picture that really isn’t the case.

George Atallah:No, I think our perspective is to show that this game is bigger than just the players and I think, you know, our players do something that very few people can, you know, that somebody like me can only dream of doing.

And obviously they are well compensated. There are risks associated with the game as well as you know, but the point here is not to try to get sympathy to a group of players or anything like that.

It’s just to identify the broader impact that this game has. The classic example of this – every team city wants a Super Bowl because the cities understand what kind of impact that would have on the city, the team city of the communities.

So that’s the broader point that we’re trying to make here. I think you know that the owners opted out of the agreement without getting into too much of, you know, the CBA jargon.

The purpose of this call and the purpose of us identifying these issues is simply to raise the public consciousness of the negative impacts that a lockout would have.

If the owners are going to lockout the players, maybe there will be a significant group of players that will be fine but many other people that support the game won’t.

Operator:We now have a follow up question from the line of Eric Sturgis with Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Please go ahead.

Eric Sturgis:Yes, I was wondering what type of feedback you all have received thus far from some of the political leaders that you all have sent letters to in recent weeks.

And also I was wondering where could we take a look at some of the research that was done for you all for the NFL PA.

George Atallah:Jesse, you guys are going to have a summary of this on your Web site, is that right?

Dr. Jesse David:Yes, it’s a brief summary and I could – if you’re interested in the details what I – one thing I would do is point you to some of these particular studies that were published, that I mentioned one or two of them. I’d be happy to give you the details on how to find those.

Eric Sturgis:Okay.

George Atallah:And what – you want to provide the Web site please?

Dr. Jesse David:Sure. It’s edgewortheconomics.com.

George Atallah:And that summary should be up already or not – or later today.

Dr. Jesse David:Yes, and that will just reflect the same highlights that we’ve discussed today. Again I think if you’ve got some more specific inquiries, probably the best thing to do would be to contact George who will pass those requests on to me.

But, you know, for example I can point you to the study by the 49ers in 2007 titled Economic and Fiscal Impacts of a New State-of-the-Art Stadium in Santa Clara.

That was published in April 2007. The Vikings Commission one or their – the facility up there, the Facility Commission commissioned a study that’s similar and there are ten others.