SBJ Football: Tampa Bucs Up With Brady In Town

I teared up a bit yesterday when my home state’s leader, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, asked his constituents to fly their American flags as a sign of unity and determination in the coronavirus fight. A wonderful idea, and a quintessentially Ohioan one. We’re being asked to sacrifice for the common cause in ways we haven’t in generations. What’s a more powerful reminder of what we can do together than the Stars and Stripes?

TOM BRADY BRINGS NFL EXCITEMENT BACK TO TAMPA

• I’ve already predicted the NFL’s three-year attendance decline will stop in 2020 because of two new stadiums and the Bengals’ expected selection of Joe Burrow in the draft. But Tom Brady going to the Buccaneers guarantees it. Consider the math: If the Bucs sell just 5,000 more tickets to every game -- a completely reasonable guess based on the initial response to Brady's contract -- that alone will recover 30% of the NFL’s total year-over-year attendance decline from 2018 to 2019. The Bucs were 29th out 32 in attendance last year, averaging 53,641 fans per game.
  
  
• Brady's signing has changed everything about the NFL and the Tampa Bay area in a week, Tampa Bay Times Sports Editor Traci Johnson told me. For years, the Bucs have been the worst of both worlds: Noncompetitive and boring. Not anymore. “The Bucs have already gone from being regional story to a national story, and it’s amazing, because it’s happened in like three days,” said Johnson. Buzz had built for weeks that Brady was considering Tampa, but morale is so low there nobody quite believed he’d really choose them -- "'We don’t have nice things’ is kind of a motto down here,” she said.
  
  
• With all other sports shut down, the Times turned its entire sports staff into Tom Brady beat writers this week, looking for all the angles: The deal, merchandise, ticket sales, Patriots fans who moved to Tampa Bay and now want to watch the Bucs. “Why Tom Brady’s Jersey Hangs In This Former Rays Pitcher’s House,” read one headline. Perhaps to underscore all of it: During a national crisis, Brady stories were in the top five most-read list on the Times website all week, surrounded by coronavirus news.

NFL TEAMS MIXED ON PAYMENT PLAN OPTIONS FOR FANS

• Olympic sports agent Brant Feldman got a cold email from the SoFi Stadium sales team on Tuesday, trying to get him to buy season tickets at prices ranging from $1,025 to $6,275. Feldman thought it was wrong, considering the drumbeat of layoffs hitting the entertainment industry. “Being that everyone here knows folks in that business and then you are getting hit up to spend money when the only real priority is food/medicine, it’s a bit tone deaf of just where we are,” he said.
  
  
• Bears season ticket holders also took to the media this week to register frustration over mixed messages. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, some Bears fans were told the deadline was moved from today to April 3, but then the team denied that was the case. Today, the Bears told me the deadline hasn’t moved, but they’ll be flexible with anybody who asks. Separately, the Patriots have kept their March 31 deadline pending further developments, and three Redskins fans told me they’ve gotten no reprieve from the April 1 deadline, and the team is still pushing renewals.
  
  
• There’s no league-wide guidance on the subject given varying conditions from club to club, and at least five teams have given all their fans more time (Giants, Jets, Packers, Texans and Titans). All businesses want to keep revenue coming in to the extent possible. But when even the IRS has given taxpayers three more months to pay their taxes, teams are risking bad press by sticking with their original plan.

NFL RELAXES RULES ON ANNOUNCING FREE AGENT SIGNINGS

• In a significant change of policy brought about by the coronavirus fight, NFL teams won a big concession from league HQ on Thursday: They can now announce free agent signings before the deal is fully official -- but if they manipulate the relaxed rules to game the system, they might lose draft picks, according to an NFL memo I’ve seen.
  
  
• This is a big relief for team-owned media, which had resorted to some boundary-pushing tweets earlier this week to brag about their deals. Caught between the rules and their obligation to be relevant news sources, some cleverly passed along “media reports” while insisting they were not officially confirming the news. The Bears were good; the Cardinals actually made me laugh.
  
  
• Usually, teams are prohibited from announcing personal moves until a contract is fully, legally executed. But with travel bans preventing players from appearing in person for physicals and signatures, that might take weeks or months. As was reported by others Thursday, teams can now announce deals as soon as 1.) An agreement is reached on terms and 2.) A written contract has been sent to a player and agent.
  
  
• The memo reminds teams that contracts aren't legally valid until both sides sign. And here’s the kicker: “If it is determined by the Management Council that the original announcement was made in an effort to gain a competitive advantage by improperly removing that free agent from the market, the club will be subject to sanctions, including the forfeiture of draft picks."

SPEED READS

• With NFL free-agency moves being some of the only non-coronavirus news in sports this week, NFL Network has been a ratings beneficiary, according to SBJ's Austin Karp. Looking at Tuesday alone, NFL Net viewership was +44% in primetime and +63% for total-day audience compared to the average for March 2019. NFL Net on Wednesday was again +1% in primetime and +54% for total-day. 
  
  
• The Ringer’s Bryan Curtis wrote how Tom Brady and the Patriots helped “launch a generation of sports media stars.” As the QB heads to Tampa Bay, he “leaves behind dozens of reporters and pundits who got their start chronicling the NFL’s 21st-century dynasty.” Curtis: “There have been choice beats before. Which one of them could bless the careers of both Dave Portnoy and David Halberstam?”
  
  
• ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler cites sources as saying that with teams “unable to oversee physicals due to the coronavirus outbreak, they have added provisions in player contracts stating that failed physicals will result in forfeited signing bonus money.” One issue there? Some players “might not get a physical for months because of travel logistics related to the coronavirus, which has caused teams to shut down their operations for an indefinite period.” It is “uncertain how many teams are drawing this hard line, but several sources have encountered the provision when finalizing contracts” over the past three days. ESPN's Adam Schefter on "NFL Live" added: "Teams are being smart in trying to protect themselves right now, but let’s see if it’s actually applied down the line.”

• NBC Sports Boston’s Tom Curran, who spoke to Bob Kraft earlier this week, said he “was a little disappointed” with the Patriots owner's reaction to Tom Brady's departure from New England. Curran: “Robert is 78, and he’s making a lot of phone calls. He’s emotional.” After Kraft defended the team’s negotiation tactics, Curran said he could hear Patriots VP/Media Relations Stacey James “perhaps make some kind of a noise, and then Robert said, ‘alright, we good?’”

• Here's something light to wrap up a week of distress: FOCO's latest bobblehead offering has the Chiefs' Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce repping commemorative championship belts.

FOCO's latest bobbleheads feature Mahomes and Kelce with commemorative championship belts

Something on the football beat catch your eye? Tell us about it. Reach out to either me (bfischer@sportsbusinessjournal.com) or Austin Karp (akarp@sportsbusinessjournal.com) and we'll share the best of it. Also contributing to this newsletter is Thomas Leary (tleary@sportsbusinessdaily.com).