One of the difficult issues for a sports league is preserving the long-term viability of all its franchises.

The competitive nature of sports forces every team in a league to invest heavily in players, coaches, front office staff, practice facilities, and stadiums. In the NFL, the need to generate local revenue to keep up with other teams has grown increasingly important in the era of player free agency. That has been a key factor in the NFL’s current stadium-building boom.

In working to secure franchise stability with a new stadium, the debate in local communities often becomes focused – and sometimes stuck – on the issue of public funding. There is clearly a role for the public sector to play in the development of stadiums, but the issue is far more complex than simply a question of public money or no public money.

NFL teams are the focus of enormous public interest and serve as important community assets. The investment of some reasonable amount of public funds in a stadium, amortized over a 20 or 30-year life of a stadium, pays for itself many times over, as the experience of many communities has demonstrated.

But in crafting a public-private stadium partnership, the public discussion too frequently gets hung up on what the team "needs" from the city or state. Sometimes lost in the dialogue is the substantial role of the private sector, the team, and the league in crafting a creative, sensible partnership that works in everyone’s best interests.

NFL teams have made big strides in the past decade to increase their local revenue in three key ways:

• Expanding their base of corporate business partners, especially to support a stadium through the purchase of suites, premium seats, and stadium sponsorships.
• Turning games into daylong events through upgraded entertainment, improved tailgating, and other interactive fan opportunities.
• Reaching out to a wider regional fan base with aggressive club marketing programs.

The NFL’s partnership structure supports the smaller-market teams through equal sharing of all national broadcast revenue and extensive sharing of all ticket revenue. This gives every club a strong revenue base. The responsibility for having first-rate stadiums to generate competitive local revenue falls to the team, although considerable assistance is available from the league.

NFL owners individually and collectively have made large investments in new stadiums. Private funding has figured prominently, and in some cases predominantly, in many new stadiums. The NFL’s unique stadium financing program, for example, has committed $650 million in league funds to eight stadiums so far. This is funding that is available as part of an individual team’s larger investment in a project. The NFL has been a recognized leader in the privatization of stadium construction.

As we look ahead to resolving future challenges to franchise stability, we will strive in each case to do three things: 1) maintain an open dialogue, 2) bring public and private interests together to create appropriate team revenue opportunities, and 3) produce positive results for the team and community.