Jeffrey Higgins's New England Patriots Fan Profile

How Costly is Brady's Injury? Since Sunday afternoon around 2pm, I have been living in complete shock and sadness sort of like Tony Soprano did during the series finale of "The Sopranos". During the game, I kept looking up after every play hoping to see Tom Brady come walking through the tunnel and into the game, just as Tony kept looking up at every person coming through the diner's door knowing that someone was out to get him. Both never came. After all, he's been the head guy in Boston for 6 years now. He's run this team, this city, heck even this state since his first Super Bowl win. If he ran for governor tomorrow he'd be elected in less time then it takes him to run the 2 minute drill. I remember the tears coming down my dad's eyes once Adam Vinatieri kicked the winning Field Goal against the Rams in the Super Bowl. The excitement of that final play will live through our heads over and over again, just the same as the chorus from a really catchy song does. And to watch the savior of the sports city scream and go down all in 3 seconds, not only did my heart stop, but so did the hearts of many other people across this country. I joked with my grandpa and told him about 15 minutes after Brady went to the locker room that I heard a dozen or so ambulances go roaring up and down the road thinking that every betting guy in New England just had a heart attack. Little did I know, that almost every executive in the National Football League did as well. Just look at these numbers: First, Tom Brady sold the 3rd most jerseys on his team (behind Randy Moss and Wes Welker), and you figure he had some part of those sales as well. At an average of $75 a jersey, and with 20,000 new jerseys sold last year, which is $1.5 million dollars in sales. Not to mention that the Patriots were the #1 team sales in NFL apparel last year, mostly due to their MVP and how much exposure the team got on their perfect regular season (and think of all the sales of perfect memorabilia that was sold as well). The NFL sold $82 million dollars worth of goods, and over $10 million was Patriots merchandise. Not only are the people who run the NFL Store not happy, but also are the network executives who are going to see their ratings drop. Let's face it. Last season's Super Bowl was the second most watched program EVER. Let's say that the Patriots were without Tom Brady and had a 14-2 season. Would people still have watched it? Yes. Would it have been the second highest rated show ever? Survey says: No. Brady and the Patriots pull in big dollars for networks which help their advertisement dollars as well as their network rating share. The Patriots had a total of 11 nationally televised regular season games with (including their last 8 games) which all attracted a heavy audience to watch them play. Let's say that without Brady the Patriots go 10-6. People are less likely to watch them play with a different leader. Granted that the cost of a Super Bowl Ad this season could reach as high as $3mil (possibly higher NEXT year if the Patriots were in it) is going to cost networks their bottom line. FOX, who gets 2 Patriots games a season at most, will lose ratings, as will ESPN, and NBC who don't see the Patriots on a regular basis. All and all, this will most likely cost each network almost a 1.5 rating drop, which comes down to about $25 million dollars in future advertisement dollars. Now Brett Favre has already made some of this up, but losing Brady is never good for a television's ratings and bottom line. Look at this week's CBS national game of the week. It was suppose to be Favre vs. Brady. Now it's Favre vs. Cassel. Not so sexy as the first one. Even though Brady only has 1% of the amount of commercials as Peyton Manning and Tony Romo have, he still is a very marketable person. He might not be trying to sell you a TV (see Manning, LT), or Pepsi with lemon (Romo) but he does sell magazines, and is a poster boy for such things like fathead, CQ, and other magazine and poster companies. Sure he might be able to do more fashion shoots and posters now, but without him on the field, who is going to care? Millions of dollars will be lost in these sales as well without Brady. And finally, the people who get hurt the most are scalpers. Sure no one cares that scalpers are getting hosed because what they do is mostly illegal and unethical, but it does effect the market. According to a legal reselling company called Stubhub, Patriot ticket listing for both home and away games (a HUGE draw for all stadiums) have dropped 40% across all games involving the Patriots once Brady was announced he was done for the season. Assuming that Stubhub sells 10,000 tickets a game (and they sell more then that. I am just taking a round number) that's over $6,000,000 Brady will cost Stubhub sellers and the parent company (which takes 15% of what the tickets sell for). Think about that for awhile. For all of you who don't understand this, think of it sort of like this: What would happen to stocks of Microsoft and Apple if Bill Gates and Steve Jobs both had a stroke and were not going to work for a year? It would cause their respected stocks to fall because both companies aren't ready for that to happen. Sure they might have someone who can fill in and get the company by, but they would not have that sure fire leader who has been with them since day 1 of glory. Sure their competitors would benefit, but many other stocks would falter who have ties with these two. The NFL has lost a Microsoft and an Apple CEO-like figure until next year. Sure they will survive and everything will be ok in the end, but the bottom line is it's never a good thing when an icon goes down.