National Football League Franchises—Team Performances, Financial Consequences by Frank P. Jozsa (review)
- National Football League Franchises—Team Performances, Financial Consequences by Frank P. Jozsa
National Football League Franchises offers an orderly and distinct insight into the performance history of NFL franchises. Frank P. Jozsa analyzes the success and failure of NFL franchises with good detail and observation on financial metrics and decision making. His premise that competing off the field with shrewd business leadership directly translates to better performance on the field is good fodder for NFL team boardrooms. [End Page 511]
The book is organized by NFL conference, division, and franchise. Each franchise is documented from a historic perspective that examines ownership, venue, market, key financial data, and team performance up to 2016. The connection between team performance and economics throughout history is supported with appropriate facts and financial material.
Jozsa summarizes the performance of each franchise with an interesting blend of sourced rankings from profile media outlets and actual metrics of ticket prices, player statistics, and team records. While persuasive, thirty-one of thirty-two NFL teams are private entities, and actual financial data is difficult to authenticate.
There is a progressive theme running through each chapter. The franchises consistently competing on the field have invested in the growth of revenue off the field. Jozsa outlines specific owners who invest in new stadiums, adjacent entertainment districts, and practice facilities. The end result is new revenue streams to support team performance and new assets to increase the value of the franchise.
National Football League Franchises is a good source for sport-management students and scholars as a concise overview of the financial workings of NFL franchises and the impact savvy ownership has on team performance. The organization of the book makes it easy to drill down and study one franchise and benchmark the data to similar-sized markets. The appendix charts also provide visual summaries to compare franchise historic performance.
