NFL Tampering With Tampering Charges? Why Favre Will Be a Viking.

Has the NFL tampered with tampering charges in a move to grease Brett Favre’s move from the Green Bay Packers to the Minnesota Vikings?

Let’s speculate.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell ruled today against the Packers’ charges the Vikings violated NFL tampering charges. According to the AP, Goodell said while Favre had conversations with Viking coaches during Favre’s self-imposed retirement, the conversations were not about Favre playing for the Vikings.

At this point in the Favre saga, the Vikings, Packers, Favre, various television networks owning rights to broadcast NFL games, and the NFL would all benefit if Favre played in the NFL this season and was traded to the Vikings.

How do we count the benefits to these entities? Let’s count ‘em down.

1. Favre is one of the most recognized sports figures in the U.S. Proof of this comes from the wall-to-wall, surround-sound, ad-nauseum coverage on every sports television and radio show and in every major newspaper sports page during the last few weeks.

Favre is not only recognized by sports fans but by the public in general. A story on Favre’s own website, HTTP://www.officialbrettfavre.com/news/story-b6c83fe0626a, quotes a marketing research firm’s poll result in which 69 percent of 1,800 randomly selected people selected Favre “as the sports figure they most recognized”, surpassing Michael Jordan AND Tiger Woods.

The NFL and its television broadcast partners clearly would be harmed if they lost one of the most recognized and marketable sports figures in history. The NFL and its media partners want to retain Favre’s celebrity, no matter where Favre ends up playing.

One could argue Favre moving to another team, particularly to a larger market like Minneapolis and the drama of Favre playing for the Packer’s arch-rival, would only increase Favre’s celebrity Q points and, naturally, heap even more benefits for the NFL and its partners.

The NFL wants Favre to play, no question, no debate. And keep this in mind: Goodell confirmed conversations among Favre and Viking coaches. Not just conservations with Viking offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell, former Favre quarterback coach and Favre friend, but with Vikings coaches plural.

2.  After years of trying, the Vikings still want a new stadium but some or all of Minnesota taxpayers would have to contribute almost the entire construction cost.

Estimates are the stadium, which could just be a rebuilding of the existing Metrodome, would cost $853 million, according to Minneapolis Star-Tribune columnist Patrick Reusse. Vikings owner Zygi Wilf and the NFL would contribute about $250 million, leaving $600 million in construction costs plus millions in infrastructure costs to taxpayers, Reusse said. (http://www.startribune.com/sports/vikings/25740134.html?location_refer=Vikings:highlightModules:5)

One way to get taxpaying fans to pay for the gravy trains, otherwise known as new stadiums, for pro sports teams’ owners is to field a potentially winning team. With Favre at quarterback, the Vikings are an immediate contender for the NFC championship.

There are thousands of Packer fans living in and around the Twin Cities area of Minnesota (Minneapolis and St. Paul), so many, in fact, the Star-Tribune boosted its Packers coverage a few years back in an effort to garner more readers. (This may have since been discontinued.)

Many of the Minnesota Packer fans are young folks who moved to Minnesota for jobs and hardly remember a time when Favre wasn’t the Packer quarterback. Many are ardent Favre fans and could switch allegiance from the Packers to the Vikings if Favre dons the Vikings’ purple and gold.

Despite their non-confirmations, the Vikings want Favre desperately and Favre wants to play for the Vikings. Part ownership of the Vikings team and new stadium could buy Favre a lot of lawn mower oil. The Vikings could also steal a lot of Wisconsin Packer fans, many of them women, who primarily root for Favre, rather than for the Packers.
Vikings owner Wilf is a multi-millionaire real estate developer. He knows its all about financing the deal, the location and the amenities. Favre is definitely a designer amenity in today’s NFL.

3.  A team who hires Ari Fleischer, a man who was press spokesman for one of the most unpopular presidents in U.S. history, still has a lot to learn about public relations. The Green Bay Packers have bumbled and stumbled their way in this entire mess.

They didn’t understand the neccessity of providing daily reports directly to their fans via their team web site or via press conference. They didn’t understand Packer fan devotion to Favre. They didn’t understand when Favre’s mother and brother fired the first shots in the battle when both said the Packers were disrespecting Favre.

Now the Packer organization just wants to get out of the mess and the best way is to accept, as they have, the NFL’s ruling against the Packers tampering charges in return for the NFL’s careful easing of Favre out of Green Bay and into Minneapolis.

The NFL couldn’t sustain the Packers’ tampering charges because the NFL wants its most recognizable, biggest celebrity to play for his preferred team, the Minnesota Vikings. If the NFL had sustained tampering charges and Favre then moved onto the Vikings, all hell would have broken loose. The NFL could not tolerate that, especially with the NBA referee scandal and resultant conspiracy theories. If Favre is traded to the Vikings, the Vikings will have to give up a draft pick. If tampering charges had been sustained AND Favre traded to the Vikings, the Vikings would have had to give up several draft picks and/or draft pick positions. The NFL wants Minnesota to build a new stadium for the Vikings. The NFL wants Favre to play as many games as possible this year, no matter the color of his uniform.

After Favre’s retirement announcement in March, in which he said he could not commit 100 percent to playing football, the Packers drafted two quarterbacks at lower-round draft choice salaries as backups to Aaron Rodgers.

Instead of retiring in March, Favre could have asked to be traded at that time.  He could have stated his desire to play for another team at that time. The Packers would then have had time to react and, perhaps, make a deal.

The Packers are owned, but not managed, by their state of Wisconsin fans, who have an average per capita income of about $35,000.

The Packers cannot fight big buck, millionaire owners and the NFL. They need to go along with whatever the NFL wants in order to preserve the franchise and, if that means allowing Favre to try to cement the deal for a new Vikings stadium, so be it.