It’s been 20 years since the NFL realigned teams within its conferences, creating the symmetrical eight four-team divisions split between the AFC and NFC. So, what would it take for a change to happen again?
When getting hypothetical about it, maybe expansion, a new team overseas or even a multi-league promotion/relegating setup like soccer leagues around the world could spark changes in the current structure. But don’t hold your breath.
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The economic and competitive pressures that forced the shifting and adding of teams more than two decades ago were a moment in time, not easily replicated. In other words, don’t expect a change in the existing alignment anytime soon.
“As (the late Houston Texans owner) Bob McNair told me some years ago, 32 teams, four per division, four divisions in each of two conferences, is about as geometrically perfect and competitively perfect as possible,” said Marc Ganis, a sports consultant, referring to the league’s alignment of eight four-team divisions within two conferences.
And it’s not just the symmetry. There is a core economic difference between now and then. Local gate revenue now gets shared, making a pretty compelling case against clubs hopscotching divisions.
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How have NFL teams fared in the 20 years since the move to eight divisions?
A little history: The NFL began pooling revenues in 1961, a landmark choice that quickly proved prescient and set the league on the road to riches, as sharing made most teams competitive. The most valuable revenue a team pooled was media, but it didn’t stop there. Visiting teams soon got 40 percent of the host club’s gate receipts (it’s actually 33 percent because teams calculate the gate off 85 percent of their revenues, and 40 percent of 85 is 33 percent). This became known as VTS, as in Visiting Team Share of gate revenue.
Nevertheless, over time, the system began to create inequities. Divisions with strong markets like the NFC East were richer because the teams were sharing plum ticket windfalls. The exception in the East was the Arizona Cardinals, which had bounced around from Chicago to St. Louis and then to Phoenix.
“Washington had a huge gate. Philly had a huge gate. New York had a huge gate. Dallas had a huge gate,” said Frank Hawkins, a former NFL chief financial officer. “When Arizona was not selling out at home, they were living on the VTS that they would get because all four of those teams were season sellouts.”
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Arizona being so far west had no business playing in an eastern division (arguably, neither does Dallas, but the Cowboys are not leaving the East). But why would the Cardinals agree to move if four times a year (visits to Dallas, Philly, New York and Washington, D.C.) they could count on one-third of a rich gate?
Because in 2001, the NFL voted to pool all VTS and evenly distribute it among all clubs, making it akin to national revenue like broadcast media. The move became effective in 2002 when the expansion Houston Texans entered the league, the year the Cardinals moved to the NFC West.
“We now have some swings in visiting-team shares,” then-commissioner Paul Tagliabue said in 2001 when previewing the change in 2002, according to The Washington Post. “It’s being reduced somewhat by all the new stadiums, but pooling visiting shares will facilitate the ultimate (realignment) decision. The economics of a road game will be neutralized so that the gate won’t be affected if a team has to move to a division with teams with smaller stadiums.”
The change meant it didn’t matter if one division had strong gate revenue across the board and another grouping was weaker; pooling VTS smoothed out some of that imbalance. That took away objections, for example, from the Cardinals to move to the NFC West.
Could anything trigger a new round of realignment? One factor might be expansion, a topic that is not on the NFL’s radar. The owners have had a great model for the past 20 years and, in any event, don’t want to share their national TV money with more teams.
But hypothetically, adding two teams — and presumably, it would have to be two teams to have the same number of clubs per conference — could spark realignment. The key would be protecting the natural divisional rivalries, Hawkins said.
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But now getting way hypothetical, Hawkins said adding more teams would be too much, so the only solution would be two leagues.
“I don’t know if you’d ever get realigned, but again, absent expansion,” he said. “If you expand, the question then becomes: Do you go to a promotion/relegation system?”
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That is the system in global soccer and has, from an intellectual standpoint, been volleyed about in U.S. sports circles forever. The truth is the NFL would never go for it. For one, as owners such as the Walton family, which now owns the Denver Broncos, pay increasingly huge sums for teams, they would be none too happy to find their prized acquisition could be relegated to a lower division.
Also, the relegation and promotion systems don’t typically involve leagues with salary caps, meaning there is more parity in the NFL. That makes the risk of relegation far greater than for a big-spending club like Chelsea FC.
One other development could theoretically revive realignment: a team relocating overseas, such as to London. Say the Jacksonville Jaguars moved to London. Would it make more sense to put them in the AFC East?
Ganis, who is acquainted with NFL executives and owners, said even if the Jaguars moved to London, it is only an hour or two longer on the plane to AFC South cities.
But it is far more likely for the NFL to play more games in London than to relocate a team there.
“I’m talking about a full season of games, not just three games,” Ganis said. “With the 17th regular-season game (added last year), I think there’s going to be many more international games. And London is a perfect place to go.”
(Illustration: John Bradford / The Athletic; photos: Andrew H. Walker, Jack Thomas, James Gilbert / Getty Images)