tiggerpolice

Saints leaving is inevitable

By JON T. STEWART
Courier Sports Editor

The writing’s on the wall and has been for years.

We can ignore it all we want or dismiss it as irrational rants by pessimistic fans until we’re blue in the face.

But sooner or later, it’s going to happen.

It’s inevitable.

The ugly truth is New Orleans will lose the Saints.

Even though it will be harder than listening to Ashlee Simpson singing a cappella, Saints fans shouldn’t take it personally.

It’s business.

Nothing more, nothing less.

The landscape of the NFL has changed drastically since the team played its first game in 1967.

The NFL is no longer about fans.

Instead of fans, the NFL seeks corporations.

In the words of P-Diddy, it’s all about the Benjamins, baby, and cities like New Orleans that don’t have many, if any at all, just can’t support an NFL team financially.

While the NBA and Major League Baseball have guaranteed contracts for their players, the NFL with its exorbitant TV rights deals and corporate backing has practically given their owners guaranteed dollars.

And lots of them.

The way business is done now is the owner convinces his buddies who own the largest businesses in their respective cities to buy majority of the season tickets and luxury boxes.

The result: a term exclusive to the NFL, the guaranteed sellout.

Saints owner Tom Benson can’t do that in New Orleans because there are no major corporations, other than Entergy, to back him.

But there is a city with many major corporations that doesn’t have a team and creates more lust in the NFL than Angelina Jolie creates in Brad Pitt.

Yep, Los Angeles. And it doesn’t take Ken Jennings to figure out that moving a team from one of the smallest markets in the U.S. to the second largest equals big bucks.

The catch is Benson doesn’t want to sell the Saints, but word out of the league is that whichever team that relocates -- and yes, it will be a relocated team because the NFL has no expansion plans in the near future -- will have new ownership.

Benson doesn’t want to sell the team, but the possibility of cashing a check worth anywhere from $500 million to $800 million may be too large for him to turn down.

Gov. Kathleen Blanco wants to keep the Saints here, but not at the cost of doing even more financial harm to the state’s education and health care systems which are in worse shape than Paula Abdul’s reputation.

Building a new stadium for the Saints is out of the question and she can’t pledge to pay all but 10 percent of the $174 million it will take to renovate the Superdome.

Her hands may be tied. And the NFL doesn’t want them any other way. It wants the Saints to abandon New Orleans for Los Angeles.

And as we’ve seen all too often, whatever the NFL wants, it usually gets.

We’re going to lose the Saints.

Maybe not this year, maybe not the next.

But it’s going to happen.

And when we do, just remember, it’s nothing personal.

Just business.

Courier sports editor Jon T. Stewart can be reached at 857-2239 or jon.stewart@houmatoday.com.


http://www.houmatoday.com/apps/pbcs..../1034/SPORTS02