NFL Lockout: Economic Impact Overstated

Despite all of the media attention surrounding the potential financial impact of the NFL Lockout, you'd be surprised by just how little it affects the economy.

The lockout looked to be over on Thursday when NFL owners unanimously agreed to a new collective bargaining agreement. But the players have yet to agree to it and thus stories on the lockout's impact continue for at least another day.

All of that constant news and analysis of the impacts of a lost NFL season will continue, even if it is very overstated, according to one sports economist.

This is just trivial, said Dennis Coates, professor of economics at University of Maryland-Baltimore County. The economic impact of a sport shutting down is overstated.

The lockout will financially affect the players, owners, and team employees, but that's about it. Companies may be upset that they won't be able to feature certain athletes, but ultimately it will have no real impact on their bottom line, according to Coates.

The faction most affected will be the fans and even they will likely get over it quickly.

People will just find something else to watch, Coates, who contributes to The Sports Economist, said. People will spend money doing other things. We won't even notice a difference. Some people will feel psychologically affected or emotionally affected but I think it will pass.

Coates noted that fans swore they would not attend baseball games after the 1995 strike, but within a year attendance numbers were back to normal.

Domino's, other big companies won't be majorly affected

Some analysts have speculated that major companies such as Domino's and Best Buy could all see profit hits, but Coates finds that to be completely off base.

That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard, Coates said about Domino's greatly suffering from a NFL lockout. Do people really only buy pizza because of football games? Do people buy pizza during football games? Sure. But what's to say people won't buy pizzas during a movie or some other activity?

One of the biggest points that the media focuses on is the 9 billion dollars in revenue that the league and players are set to split up. This might sound like a massive number but in comparison to other big businesses, that $9 billion dollar number isn't so large.

You hear that a player has a 25 million dollar contract, he said. You hear that the NFL is dividing up $9 billion dollars. But $9 billion dollars in a $3 trillion economy is just a drop in the bucket.

Despite the way it involves passion out of people, football and other sports don't hold a candle to some of the other recent economic crises.

The worsening recession (and) federal government defaulting on its debt, Coates said were two more important issues. Want to see a real economic impact? Watch when that goes down.