Or a situation like the NHL experienced. The difference in

professional sports versus college sports is that the value of the franchise is part of the equation. The Kansas City Royals stunk it up for 20-25 years. David Glass of Walmart success swoops in and buys the team for $96 million in 2000...there wasn't a lot of interested parties at the time...and then runs the team like Walmart, gets lucky in 2014-2015 and sells the team for $1 Billion in 2019. Nice move for him. The same opportunity exists across all top tier professional leagues. Uber rich guys like buying a team for the fun of it. It is a limited availability and valued asset. They can spend however they please...spend or not spend...and then sell it for a huge profit down the line. University athletic programs do not work in that world.

The Arena Football League was a trademark client back in the day. David Baker...probably the largest human I have ever met in person...was the Commissioner and lead salesman for the AFL. He was a great face for the league and his primary business was selling franchises and building value for the league.

I remember going to the 1998 Arena Bowl in Tampa...the War on I-4...between the Orlando Predators and the Tampa Bay Storm and being at a big pre-game party thrown by the league. Semi-truly rich guys were walking around with their chests puffed out...owners of AFL franchises at the time. Baker was selling them for around $500,000 in 1998. I wondered how sustainable the AFL was. Franchises did increase in value for awhile until financial difficulties hit. Needless to say, it was fun while it lasted for most of the franchise owners and most lost a lot. If you don't keep up on the treadmill, team performance slips, people stop attending the games or watching on tv, ticket prices go down and tv revenue decreases.Becoming a de facto minor league for a monolith like the NFL is a slippery slope.

Click here for link at https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2019/11/27/arena-footb