4.9 Análisis del manejo de la calidad total
5.7.3 Volumen de ventas
To compare a few characteristics of NFL stadiums, I researched the lit- erature and organized the five columns in Table 4.1. These columns provide some qualitative and quantitative information about stadiums of the 32 NFL teams listed in column one. For example, most of these facilities were nick- named to represent a business (Qualcomm) while others used different first- name titles, such as that of an animal (Dolphin), a city (Cleveland), a founder-owner (Ralph Wilson), a politician (Hubert H. Humphrey), a state (Georgia), and a team (Giants).
Interestingly, these and the other nicknames identify with and represent specific franchises even though some venues are privately owned, including Miami’s Dolphin Stadium, Charlotte’s Bank of America Stadium, Landover’s FedEx Field, and Foxborough’s Gillette Stadium. Thus, another 27 stadiums are the property of cities, counties, municipalities, and/or states while more than 100,000 shareholders own the Green Bay Packers franchise but not Lam- beau Field.
As denoted in column two of the table, three (nine percent) of these sta- diums were built before 1960 and another three during the 1960s. Further- more, six (19 percent) of them were constructed in the 1970s, two (six percent) in the 1980s, eight (25 percent) in the 1990s, and 10 (32 percent) in the 2000s. As such, approximately 43 percent of these 31 NFL stadiums opened before 1990 and 57 percent since that year.
Besides differences in these proportions before and after 1990, there were recent and major renovations completed to Soldier Field, Jacksonville Munic- ipal Stadium, Lambeau Field, Arrowhead Stadium, and the Louisiana Super- dome, and then during 2009–2011, the construction of a new facility in Dallas for the Cowboys and another in the New York area for the Giants and Jets. Consequently, it will be several years or even a decade before the majority of NFL teams request any additional financial assistance from U.S. taxpayers and/or sponsors to upgrade their facilities or build them a new stadium.
Column four in Table 4.1 contains the various capacities of these 31 ven- ues. It denotes, for instance, that the average size of the three stadiums
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Jacksonville Jaguars 1946 Jacks. Municipal Stadium 67,164 145 Green Bay Packers 1957 Lambeau Field 72,515 295 San Francisco 49ers 1960 Candlestick Park 69,734 25 Oakland Raiders 1966 Oakland-Alameda Stadium 63,132 100 San Diego Chargers 1967 Qualcomm Stadium 71,500 27
Chicago Bears 1971 Soldier Field 61,500 660
Dallas Cowboys 1971 Texas Stadium 65,675 35
Kansas City Chiefs 1972 Arrowhead Stadium 79,451 53 Buffalo Bills 1973 Ralph Wilson Stadium 73,967 22 New Orleans Saints 1975 Louisiana Superdome 69,703 134
New York Giants 1976 Giants Stadium 78,741 78
New York Jets 1976 Giants Stadium 78,741 78
Minnesota Vikings 1982 Hubert H. Humphrey Met. 63,000 55
Miami Dolphins 1987 Dolphin Stadium 75,192 115
Atlanta Falcons 1992 Georgia Dome 71,228 210
St. Louis Rams 1995 Edwards Jones Dome 66,000 248 Carolina Panthers 1996 Bank of America Stadium 73,400 248 Washington Redskins 1997 FedEx Field 91,000 251 Baltimore Ravens 1998 M&T Bank Stadium 70,107 220 Tampa Bay Buccaneers 1998 Raymond James Stadium 65,647 169 Cleveland Browns 1999 Cleveland Browns Stadium 73,200 300
Tennessee Titans 1999 LP Field 67,000 292
Cincinnati Bengals 2000 Paul Brown Stadium 65,600 334 Denver Broncos 2001 Invesco Field at Mile High 76,125 401 Pittsburgh Steelers 2001 Heinz Field 64,450 281
Detroit Lions 2002 Ford Field 65,000 440
Houston Texans 2002 Reliant Stadium 69,500 449
New England Patriots 2002 Gillette Stadium 68,756 325
Seattle Seahawks 2002 Qwest Field 67,000 360
Philadelphia Eagles 2003 Lincoln Financial Field 68,532 360 Arizona Cardinals 2006 University of Phoenix Stad. 63,000 395 Indianapolis Colts 2008 Lucas Oil Stadium 63,000 719
Note: The first column contains the names of NFL teams while column two denotes the year
constructed before 1960 was approximately 69,800 or 69.8. For those built in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, these averages in thousands were, respectively, about 68.1, 73.4, 69.0, 72.1, and 67.0. Thus, the smallest group of stadiums in capacities opened in the 1960s and 2000s, while the largest emerged in the 1970s and 1990s.
In other words, the average sizes of new NFL stadiums varied each decade, that is, increase and decrease twice between 1960 and 2008. In part, expansion of the U.S. economy, growth of city and area populations, increased amounts of tax revenues collected by municipal governments and their abil- ity to issue new debt had each, in some way, contributed to the construction of large, midsized, or small facilities for this group of 32 professional foot- ball teams.
Another interesting feature of column four is the distribution of capac- ities across teams. The largest stadiums in 2008 existed for home games of the Redskins, Chiefs, Giants and Jets, while the Vikings, Cardinals, and Colts each played single games within their venues before hometown crowds of no more than 63,000. With respect to other facilities that hosted NFL clubs, such popular and successful teams as the Broncos, Packers, and Panthers competed in home games within relatively large stadiums, as did some clubs that were less prominent, like the Bills, Dolphins, and Falcons. Alternatively, under- sized venues appear to be the case for the Bears, Patriots and Steelers, and oversized stadiums existed for the 49ers, Saints, and Texans. Therefore, the distribution of these stadiums’ capacities in 2008 was not necessarily consis- tent or matched with the performance and popularity of some superior, mediocre, and inferior teams in the league.
Column five of the table, meanwhile, depicts the estimated costs that were initially required to build each of these 31 stadiums in various years. Because of price and wage inflation and thus higher payments for equipment, materials and workers, the average construction cost of NFL stadiums changed each decade as follows: $50 million in the 1960s, $64 million in the 1970s, $85 million in the 1980s, $242 million in the 1990s, and $406 million in the 2000s.
Despite these expenditures, stadiums of the Bills, 49ers, Chargers, and Vikings still need major renovation or perhaps replacement. Moreover, the amounts spent for the construction of Dallas’ Texas Stadium, Miami’s Dol- phin Stadium, and Tampa Bay’s Raymond James Stadium were a bargain Met. means “Metrodome” and Stad. is an abbreviation of “Stadium.” Capacity is in thousands of seats for these stadiums as of the early 2000s. In column five, the costs of construction are estimates in millions of dollars.
Source: The World Almanac and Book of Facts and “The Business of Football” at http://
compared to the relatively high costs of stadiums built during the same decade. Even so, the cost of each NFL building is less important to investors than how much revenue they generate for their respective franchise. As such, some stadiums that cost less than $200 million to build or renovate may have gen- erated more revenue in 2008 for their hometown teams than others with total payments at or above $200 million.
In 2008, the gate receipts of teams who played regular season games at home in these 31 stadiums ranged from $84 million for the Redskins at FedEx Field in Landover to $39 million for the 49ers at Candlestick Park in San Francisco and Raiders at Oakland-Alameda Stadium (renamed McAfee Col- iseum) in Oakland. Two other stadiums that provided high and low gate receipts included, respectively, Gillette Stadium in Foxborough at $80 mil- lion and Invesco Field at Mile High in Denver at $59 million, and then Ralph Wilson Stadium in Buffalo at $40 million and the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans at $41 million.
Because they were attractive, entertaining, and/or popular clubs during 2008, the Redskins, Patriots, and Broncos played well enough in games before spectators within their home stadiums to earn the highest amounts of gate receipts among all NFL clubs. In contrast, the 49ers, Raiders, Bills, and Saints failed to attract many local football fans to home games and thus the amounts they collected from receipts at their venues each summed to less than 50 per- cent of what the Redskins had earned at FedEx Field.
During 2008, Forbes magazine published an interesting article titled “The Business of Football.” Among various topics within this article, the authors reported the initial cost to build NFL stadiums and the dollar amounts of these facilities in 2008 as a proportion of each team’s estimated market value that year. According to this study, the cost to construct 21 (67 percent) of these sta- diums exceeded the amount of their financial worth as a fraction of the respec- tive franchise. For example, it cost $449 million to build Houston’s Reliant Stadium in 2002. However, its worth in 2008 was $185 million (16 percent) of the Texans estimated market value of $1.125 billion. In fact, such differences in worths and values existed primarily for any stadiums built or renovated since the mid–1990s, like Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Paul Brown Stadium in Cincinnati, and M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore. Thus, it will be several years or perhaps one or two decades before individuals and groups in the private and public sectors recoup their initial investment in each of these 21 venues.4
Besides those particular facilities, the article in Forbes also denoted the reverse for nine (30 percent) of the NFL stadiums. That is, their estimated worth in 2008 was greater than the initial cost of constructing the facility. To illustrate these differences in amounts, Kansas City’s Arrowhead Stadium was valued at $145 million in 2008 but it cost only $50 million in 1972 to
build it. Since they opened before the early 1990s, three other venues that belong in this category included Dolphin Stadium, Giants Stadium, and Qualcomm Stadium.
In other words, because of inflation or decline in the purchasing power of a U.S. dollar, the amounts and financial returns on nine NFL stadiums exceeded the original investment of dollars in them. Interestingly, the $365 million worth in 2008 of 12-year-old FedEx Field in Landover is greater than its cost by $114 million. For sure, Redskins proprietor Daniel Snyder owns the most efficient, productive, and profitable stadium in the league.
In comparison to the two previous groups of teams facilities, the initial cost and estimated amount to replace 27-year-old Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area equaled $55 million in 2008. That year the Vikings franchise was valued at $839 million, and approximately seven percent of this amount applied to the club’s stadium. Besides the Vikings, two other NFL clubs whose stadiums’ cost and their market value almost equaled each other in dollars during 2008 included the Buccaneers and Raiders, whereas the largest differences in these amounts existed for home stadiums of the Bears, Colts, and Lions. In short, the oldest stadiums in the league have appreciated in value above their initial cost while a majority of the 31 will require many years of use before they provide more value and return as investments for their owners.
Recently Sports Illustrated conducted a study of all NFL stadiums by for- warding a questionnaire to its readers in order to determine how happy they were as fans with their local professional football team’s facility. About one- third of the responses returned from readers to the magazine were from sea- son-ticket holders who had attended at least three home games per year. After measuring these results, Sports Illustrated ranked each stadium based on five criteria. In no specific order, these were affordability/food, tailgating, team quality, atmosphere, and accessibility. To establish the rank of each stadium, the five criteria were equally weighted. Thus, when concluded, the study revealed the level of satisfaction that each of the league’s fan base had with its home stadium and the respective team’s year-to-year success.5
Based on the results of this survey, a ranking of these stadiums appears in Appendix J. It indicates, for example, football fans ranked the Packers’ Lambeau Field, the Steelers’ Heinz Field, and the Broncos’ Invesco Field at Mile High as stadiums that most satisfied them. More specifically, Lambeau Field in Green Bay finished first or second among all stadiums in three (60 percent) of the categories while Heinz Field in Pittsburgh scored relatively high in four of them, but not in accessibility. Meanwhile, Broncos fans did not appreciate the tailgating that occurred before, during, and after games played at the team’s stadium in Denver.
At the lowest end of the distribution, the Vikings’ HHH Metrodome, the Lions’ Ford Field, and the Rams’ Edward Jones Dome placed thirtieth, thirty-first, and thirty-second, respectively, among 31 stadiums in the study. Because of problems that affected fans, these three NFL facilities ranked below average in each of the five categories. Furthermore, the Jets’ Giants Stadium in East Rutherford finished last on the list in affordability/food and in acces- sibility, but so did Minneapolis’ HHH Metrodome in tailgating, Detroit’s Ford Field in team quality, and Oakland’s McAfee Coliseum in atmosphere. Some rankings were interesting and therefore revealed information in the study. For example, the Colts’ Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Indiana, ranked sixth despite its opening in 2008. FedEx Field, which is the league’s most lucrative stadium in revenue, placed near the bottom because the Red- skins charge high ticket and food prices at its regular season games in Lan- dover. Surprisingly, however, Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte did not rank above thirteenth, although Panthers fans are dissatisfied with the avail- ability and opportunity to tailgate and the team’s quality and overall atmos- phere at home games.
Another observation derived from Appendix J is that the Cowboys’ new stadium will likely rank lower in affordability/food in 2009 but higher in tailgating and accessibility. Furthermore, if the team wins a division title in the NFL’s National Conference, then the Cowboys’ stadium will rank at least fifteenth if Sports Illustrated performs another survey in 2010.
This concludes the first major section of Chapter 4. To continue with analyzing and evaluating the facilities of NFL clubs, the next part discusses how well various teams in the league played before and after they moved into new stadiums, and comparatively, whether their home attendances margin- ally increased or decreased in regular season games within each of these venues.