NEW YORK, NY – A hybrid delegation of National Football League (NFL) officials and members of Congress announced a new program today which will help to restore interest in the professional football. 

The NFL has suffered losses in recent years.  Revenues from tickets and concessions, broadcasting and advertising, and even merchandising have been on a steady decline since 2016.

The most common among the reasons for the decline revolve around three separate events.  Fan favorite Peyton Manning retired from the league in 2016 after winning Super Bowl 50 with the Denver Broncos. 

Around that time and unrelated to the Manning retirement, more and more viewers began changing the way they watched television by cutting their cable packages and resorting to streaming content via the internet.  During this time, streaming television was still new and untested.  Local stations were not available in this format for a few more years, and fans couldn’t watch the NFL or most other sports through this medium.

Finally, the infusion of politics into the league around players kneeling during the performance of the National Anthem left fans with no desire to patronize the league through attending or watching games, or buying team merchandise.

To solve the growing concerns over loss of popularity and profitability of the sport, a joint venture between the NFL and the U.S. Government has been formed to restore American interest in professional football.  Beginning with the 2022 season, Americans will be able to obtain loans guaranteed by the U.S. Government to finance their patronage of the NFL.

Fans will be able to obtain one loan each season to cover the cost of two tickets to one regular season game in the nearest market.  The annual loan is also designed to help cover fees for fans who subscribe to networks which stream NFL content.  Additional “plus” loans will be made available to cover extras such as travel and lodging costs to attend a game.  That includes concessions, programs, and other souvenirs.  The loans can also be used for purchasing officially licensed merchandise.  A web portal similar to FAFSA.gov, a site used by college-bound students seeking financial aid, will be established to facilitate fans’ ability to patronize the NFL.

The eventual goal of the new measure will be for all fans wanting to purchase anything from a jersey to a game ticket will go through the loan program to purchase it.  Furthermore, the only way fans will be able to purchase NFL products is with a cryptocurrency specially created for the loan program which can only be obtained through the web portal.

Sporting goods stores, retail outlets, events merchandisers, concessions companies, and any other outfit looking to sell any type of NFL merchandise will have to be licensed by the NFL and have the ability to process transactions using the new cryptocurrency.

This isn’t the first time such an intervention has taken place. 

Students seeking any type of financial aid to attend college sign up through FAFSA.gov.  This allows the government to participate in the student’s ability to finance their way to a higher education, most commonly via student loans.  Colleges which accept students who are using federally guaranteed student loans for tuition benefit from the program through increased enrollment.

The same premise would be used with the NFL.  Federally guaranteed loans would allow NFL franchises to boost ticket sells, viewership, and merchandising by making it easier for fans to access the product.

Opponents of the measure were quick to point out the drawbacks to the government subsidizing a private sector institution such as the NFL.  A black market for the NFL merchandise is immediately created once limits are put on how fans engage with the product.  It doesn’t stop there.

When the government took over the financial aid process for college bound students, colleges which didn’t need the money raised their prices anyway.  Students, at the encouragement of the government, borrowed money they shouldn’t have to pay for a higher tuition than they should have.  Students are now having problems paying the money back.

If the government is going to get involved in NFL fandom the same way it got involved with higher education, an NFL loan crisis could be on the horizon which would eclipse the current student loan crisis.

More importantly, Jeffrey Epstein didn’t kill himself.