BORES OF SUMMER : NFL Exhibition Games Seem Primarily for Making Money and Testing Markets

The players called it the Woody Hayes Bowl, an NFL exhibition game contrived to satisfy the supposedly insatiable thirst Ohio fans had for their Cincinnati Bengals and Cleveland Browns. As if two regular-season games between the teams weren’t enough.

Bob Trumpy, a Bengal tight end in those days, was there. Then again, he had to be. But to anyone else who wandered into Ohio Stadium as the Columbus summer heat baked all living things, Trumpy sends his belated condolences.

These were games that not even the old man himself could enjoy. This was exhibition football at its worst: Two teams, rivals to begin with, knocking each other senseless for no apparent reason.

“That was awful ,” said Trumpy, now a network football commentator and Cincinnati talk-show host.

And here’s why: Neither team ran more than a handful of plays or revealed more than the most basic of defenses. Not with the regular season weeks away. It was Dick and Jane football.

“After the first quarter, we’d know their three plays and three formations, and they’d know ours,” Trumpy said. “Then we’d beat the living . . . out of each other for the last three quarters.”

Innocent times were these. Teams played six exhibition games. Coaches were given the chance to develop rookies and free-agent prospects. Management had yet to devise new ways to trap the season-ticket holder. And winning wasn’t vital, performance was.

“There used to be the day when the coach said preseason games weren’t important and selling tickets wasn’t important,” said Dick Vermeil, former coach of the Philadelphia Eagles. “You wanted to look respectable during preseason.”

In short, the fans knew what they were getting.

Look at it now. First, instead of calling them exhibitions, the NFL calls them preseason games. Sounds better. More important, more wholesome, more professional.

Also, a four-game exhibition schedule, instituted in 1978, is standard now. This usually leaves coaches with a choice: Work with inexperienced players and emphasize improvement, or play exclusively for exhibition game victories.

“Tom (Landry) wants to win, but he also wants to develop the younger player,” said Gil Brandt, Dallas Cowboy vice president in charge of personnel. “You can’t do both.”

As for tickets, that’s easy. With few exceptions, your favorite NFL franchise will make you pay for nearly meaningless, diluted exhibition games as part of a season package. Protests are useless.

And why is it that Tempe, Ariz.; Memphis, Tenn., and Jacksonville, Fla., will have exhibition games this season, but Buffalo, home of the Bills, won’t?

Simple. A new competition, encouraged by the NFL, now exists among cities interested in getting expansion franchises. Most likely, the city that impresses NFL bookkeepers will receive first consideration. Commissioner Pete Rozelle and at least one NFL owner have said as much.

Money, as usual, has become the starting point for the exhibition season. Owners want to increase profits, which makes sense. It’s a business, after all. The methods, however, are questionable.

Of the 28 NFL clubs, 20 require season ticket-holders to buy exhibition game packages, too.

In Pittsburgh, where the Steelers have a nine-year waiting list for season tickets, the philosophy was explained as such: “You have no choice. It’s included in the package.”

So fans, eager to get or keep their precious seats, pay the extra freight the Steelers charge for the exhibition games.

Similar situations exist in San Francisco, which has 20,000 on its waiting list; Seattle, about 9,000, and Denver, 17,000. There are no exceptions. Demand is so high, that the 49ers, Seahawks and Broncos could charge for halftime shows and probably receive few complaints. Such is the mania.

Other teams--the Raiders, Rams, Kansas City Chiefs--allow fans who don’t want the exhibition package to buy season tickets only after the conclusion of home exhibition games. The selling point is this: Buy the entire package rather than risk waiting and getting a less desirable view.

The New York Giants and New York Jets adhere to the same policy, except that their waiting lists vary between 20,000 for the Giants and 10 years for the Jets.

Meanwhile, the Green Bay Packers and Washington Redskins, with their waiting lists of 10,000 and 17,600 fans, respectively, allow for the purchase of individual exhibition games.

According to the National Football League Players Assn., NFL teams earned an average of about $1.3 million from last year’s exhibition schedule. In 1985, the figure was about $1.24 million, said the NFLPA.

Revenue is earned through local television contracts, worth an average of about $100,000 for each game, by NFLPA accounts, plus radio contracts, gate receipts, possible concessions and luxury box arrangements. Team costs include player per diems, about $348,000, and room and board, about $200,000.

“It’s certainly not a loss leader for them,” said an NFLPA official of the exhibition season.

An NFL Management Council spokesman said: “Generally, we don’t comment on club revenue, anyway. We don’t make it public what they’re doing.”

The current collective bargaining agreement, which expires Aug. 31, calls for rookies to earn $450 beginning the first day of the exhibition season and ending one week before the start of the regular season. Veterans receive $500 for a week’s worth of practice and $200 for each exhibition game.

Look at it this way: By season’s end, Arena Football League players earned more--$300-$500 a game--than an NFL veteran did in an exhibition game.

Almost without fail, however, NFL players and coaches say that the level of competition in an exhibition game is high. Vermeil, who guided the Eagles to the Super Bowl in 1980, likes to say that the caliber of players involved in the weekly exhibition is higher than that of the annual Ohio State-Michigan game.

“It’s better football,” he said. “But the image of it is not better.”

Wasn’t it author Dan Jenkins, however, who once wrote that there are at least 10 better things to do than watch an NFL game, among them eating a fish head, joining a religious cult and discussing wine. Think of the list if confined to exhibition games.

Here’s why:

--At last count, 11 first-round draft choices, including Seattle’s Brian Bosworth, remained unsigned and out of camp. So much for observing future stars develop.

--If you’re hoping to watch the starting offense or defense, arrive early. By the second half of most exhibition games, the starters are on the bench hoping the clock will tick faster.

Some coaches even choose to keep starters out of the game entirely. When New England quarterback Tony Eason returned from a recent contract holdout, Patriot Coach Raymond Berry told reporters, “We had no plans to play our No. 1 quarterback in this game anyway.”

How pleased those ticket-holders must be. Imagine paying for Pavarotti and instead getting the local barbershop quartet.

--Injuries take their toll on starting lineups. Coaches are inclined to rest a player during the exhibition season rather than aggravate a minor injury. Again, the ticket-holder is penalized.

Says Trumpy of the idea that there are such things as quality exhibition games: “I don’t think it ever has been--not now, not ever.

“It works like this: Rookies want as many exhibition games as you can get,” he said. “So do the guys who are second-stringers or free agents. Preseason games are a necessary evil for veterans. I think you could accomplish the same thing if you had scrimmages. The games just gave me the feeling of adrenaline flowing.”

Carl Ekern, now in his 11th year as a Ram linebacker, said he uses the exhibition season as a refresher course. “(It’s) to get my mind back thinking and reacting in football terms.

“Dealing strictly on theory, by the time that last preseason game rolls around, I should be fully in shape, my timing should be down. In the fourth preseason game, I would expect to see a precise, well tuned team, ready to perform at top level.”

But that’s theory. More often, kinks are evident.

--Another product of the exhibition season is secrecy. Game plans are spare, simple affairs for the most part. Depending on the philosophy of the coach, an offense and defense can operate on few plays and formations. Against the Denver Broncos last Sunday, reserve quarterback Steve Dils said the Ram offense was limited to about 50-75% of its usual plays.

Exceptions exist. The Houston Oilers spent last year’s exhibition season trying desperately to win every game. They used safety blitzes, polished coverages, their starting lineups for most of their four exhibition games. A new coach and system, as well as a recent history of losing records, may have influenced the strategy.

“They wanted to establish themselves,” said Dils.

So naturally, the Oilers finished the exhibition season with a 4-0 record and the regular season at 5-11.

Wasted effort? No, says Vermeil.

According to his statistics, 96 teams have advanced to the playoffs since 1978. Of those 96 teams, 74 had winning or .500 records during the exhibition season. Only two teams, he says, made the playoffs after losing all four exhibition games.

Vermeil said he cared little if his teams lost an exhibition game. He was concerned more with performance. Now, he said, there is pressure on some coaches to win even before the regular season starts.

“There used to be a day when a coach signed a four-, five-year contract,” he said. “You were given a chance to build a program. Now how many coaches have been given that chance? Not very many. (By emphasizing exhibition victories) you may appear to be a better team than you actually are.”

Waiting patiently are a few cities that would do nearly anything to attract an NFL franchise, even a losing one. Memphis, Jacksonville and Phoenix are considered the front-runners and have solidified their standing by getting exhibition games.

The Broncos and Packers will play in Tempe, just outside Phoenix, Saturday. The Patriots and Atlanta Falcons will play in Jacksonville Sept. 4. The Chiefs and St. Louis Cardinals will play in Memphis Sept. 6.

At stake are community pride and millions of dollars’ worth of economic impact.

The game in Tempe reflects to what lengths an organizing group, in this case, the Arizona NFL Expansion Franchise Ltd., will go to impress league executives. John Colbrunn, a chief partner in the Arizona NFL effort, agreed to sponsor the game shortly after a meeting with Bronco owner Pat Bowlen last fall.

“Bowlen said, ‘How would you like to sponsor a preseason game?’ ” Colbrunn said. “We couldn’t refuse because we’re trying to get a franchise. What could we say?”

In return, Arizona NFL found itself with $1.2-million worth of costs, no television or radio contract, no parking revenue and only limited concession arrangements. Add to that a game date in the time of year when local weather is unusually muggy and uncomfortable.

“We’re selling it on the worst day of the year,” he said. “It’s the only time of the year we have any humidity.”

Colbrunn said that even if the game is a sellout--55,000 tickets have been sold, which is the break-even point--organizers will insist that it not be televised locally.

“We’re going to show the NFL that we can fill the stands,” he said. “We want to make sure the NFL sees a full stadium.”

Good thing, since Bowlen, during a recent visit to Phoenix, was quoted as saying: “I’m an Arizona man. So much so, that they probably won’t let me on the (NFL’s) expansion committee. However, in light of what Jacksonville and Memphis are doing with half the population and 10 times the humidity, if they fill their stadiums and Arizona doesn’t make a good showing filling theirs, in my opinion, you can kiss the franchise goodby.”

Several weeks earlier, Colbrunn said he was read a statement from Rozelle. The statement, given to fellow Arizona NFL organizer Bart Starr, the former Green Bay quarterback, read in part: “ . . . they are very hungry and well organized cities and the league will be watching with great interest these preseason games in Arizona, Tennessee and Florida, when an unofficial contest for fan support seems to be emerging.”

To lure the Broncos and Packers to Tempe and Arizona State’s Sun Devil Stadium, Colbrunn’s group had to arrange for a guarantee for both teams. Calling it “the highest guarantee in the history of preseason,” Colbrunn declined to make public the figures. But sources familiar with the negotiations say that each team will get about $375,000. That doesn’t include whatever arrangements the Packers and Broncos have made with their own local television and radio stations.

Although an anticipated $25,000-$50,000 profit is earmarked for area charities, Colbrunn said that the game also will enhance his group’s chances with the NFL. At least three other Phoenix-area organizations are trying to attract an NFL expansion franchise.

And it starts with an exhibition game, the kind of game Trumpy says he wouldn’t pay to attend “unless my son plays in one.”