Playoffs

Just recently I heard a question asked..."Are there any incentives to making the playoffs other than just trying to win the Super Bowl?" the reply was, "Yes, you will make a lot more money?" This puzzled me and I wondered if it were true.. so here's the answer.

You usually lose money during the playoffs. How?

Many point the revenue sharing system employed by the NFL. Each team receives and equal amount of league revenue, TV contract, merchandising, and home game ticket revenue. During the regular season, home teams get to keep two-thirds of the ticket revenue, the remaining third goes into a pool shared by all other teams. The NFL keeps all ticket revenue during the playoffs, but home teams can keep money made off other stadium related sales, merchandise, concessions etc. etc. The NFL pays division winning teams a flat fee of $580,000 and other teams $500,000 in the first round. In the second round, each team gets $580,000 and in the championship round $960,000. The Super Bowl winner receives $3.5 million and runner up $2.59 million. That is usually not enough to cover team expenses.

John Jones, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the Green Bay Packers said, “Expenses usually exceed whatever you get from the league.” Other reasons for teams losing money in the playoffs include paying bonuses to staff and players for successful playoff runs, moving equipment to the games (obviously, home teams do not have to worry about this), and hosting VIPS and sponsors. Players do not profit from playoff games either. NFL teams do not have to pay their players during the playoffs because the league covers the playoff salary pool, which is beyond regular season pay. A player’s salary is divided among the 16 regular season games. A marquee player may make nearly $800,000 per game in the regular season but in the playoffs, he will make the same as a player who sits on the bench most of the time, generally around $18,000 per game