Roger Goodell is used to hearing.
As a commissioner responsible for the explosive NFL growth over the past two decades, Goodell has overseen a transformation into “The Shield” that has turned it from a corporate figure into one of the most powerful voices in sports. And while the change of the last two decades of the NFL is probably best seen in the Excel Spreadsheets of the League – television deals that once sold for hundreds of millions are now in auction for hundreds BILLION – is probably the best sensitive in the force of the commissioner’s voice when he speaks.
This force was visible in a private environment after the end of the Super Bowl LVIII, according to A new book for the Commissioner and the LeagueWhen Goodell is reported to give a weak line for his competitors.
“We’re not competing with NBA or MLB,” Goodell said. “Our competitors are Apple and Google.”
The truth, of course, is that Goodell did not intend for his sentence to be small for MLB or NBA. He was simply accepting a fact that some outside the sports business took care to understand: NFL business had changed from sale of football in sale attention.
The sport at the center of the NFL business is football, yes, but the unifying theory at the center of the NFL business is attention. NFL wants as much attention as you are willing to sell, as long as you are willing to sell it, and even when you are not selling it, the NFL wants to catch your attention in as many ways as possible. The league goes for this in a variety of smart ways: organizing a schedule containing drama and intrigue games, building a year -round calendar that brings significant football moments in most months of the year, signing a set of TV rights that allow direct broadcasts on any channel and cannon, Even fans of the poor fans of the poor and the success of the poor and the success to find emotions and successful.
In many ways, this is the same plan (applied very differently) that has prompted the growth of the planet of technology giants like Apple and Google. For those companies, the spear was different – the iPhone and the search engine that served as the online gate – but the strategy was similar. For both companies, “success” was not determined not in cash or market market, but in the way their products managed to have the same grip for customers that the NFL has increasingly practiced in recent years.
Think about it: NFL can go away with things that no other sport can. Can decide to take over a day of the week, as happened with Thursday evening football. It can decide to take over a whole new platform, as Netflix did. Can persuade the world to play a fake sport. Hell, can compete Santa Claus.
These discoveries feel small when they occur, but they come together to form something much larger than the sum of its parts. For most Americans, NFL is much more than a “product”. Is a common language.
Fortunately, one of the greatest actors of golf is already close to NFL thinking: PGA Tour’s newest CEO is The long man of the right hand of goodell, Brian Rupp. Perhaps no man is better equipped to talk about these processes than ROPP, who helped oversee some of Goodll’s greatest achievements as a commissioner, and who enters PGA Tour with expertise in the attention economy.
“(Brian) is coming from a place where larger brands and bigger stars compete against each other as much as possible in the highest high profile games on the largest platforms to direct the most interesting viewing,” A source told Golf In a feature regarding his employment in June. “PGA Tour needs help in this regard.”
For Pro Golf, the lesson here is simple: tracking is not only about winning the battles of evaluations on TV, but also about winning the struggle for attention. The project is similar to NFL: Bring golf to as many eyes as possible, wherever they live (on TV, YouTube or Social Media); Find new ways to provide existing events with meaning and drama; and pioneer levers that will decide the future of the sport. (This strategy, by the way, can also be credited to Augusta National, which counts Goodell as a member.)
This can mean a tour with a smaller, clumsy schedule that constructs cohesive towards something bigger. It may mean rethinking access to new media, equipment, or places or rules. This probably means gathering the best players in the world more often. Mainly, however, means following things that make you better In ways that may not immediately make you richer.
For Rolapp and the rest of the heavy weights at the top of the golf business, these are more difficult goals than they seem. Following the success of football can be a complicated business for a sport without NFL or Mettle – and if Commish’s comments looked weird about NFL, they would sound even more crazy coming out of a PGA Tour executive.
But there IS A message in admission of Goodell worth listening to Golf as he returns the page in 2025 – a lesson that Goodell himself learned long ago.
If you want to hear, pay attention.
;)
James Colgan
Golfit.com editor
James Colan is a news editor of news and features in Golf, writing stories on the website and magazine. He manages the hot germ, golf media vertical and uses his experience on camera across brand platforms. Before entering Golf, James graduated from Siracuse University, during which time he was a caddy scholarship receiver (and Astuta Looper) in Long Island, where he is. He can be reached on James.colgan@golf.com.
