NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell is actually backing a plan that will be good, even great, for bookmakers everywhere. Expanding the NFL Playoffs means more games… which means more wagering… which means a higher hold percentage for everyone.
Goodell’s support for the expansion has proven to be so strong that the possibility of having it come to pass this coming season, instead on next, is now on the table and being discussed by the NFL owners and the Commissioner’s Office.
All that will be required is a consensus vote of the NFL team owners who will be meeting on May 20th in Atlanta for their regularly scheduled spring get together.
Nay-Sayers are claiming that augmenting the number of games played in the NFL Playoffs will seriously dilute the whole process. Those folks are obviously not in on any of the television deals involved or the Casinos and SportsBooks either.
Roger Goodell refuted that theory saying, “I think what we’re seeing now is such a competitive league that a team that got in on the 13th or 14th spot has a chance to win it all. The reality is there are a lot of teams that other playoff teams are afraid of coming in in those 13th and 14th spots.”
Looking to the past we see that three consecutive Super Bowl Champion teams (2010, 2011 &2012) didn’t manage win over 10 regular season games. They were not the number one seeds. But they all won the Super Bowl!
The move seems inevitable when you consider the expanded revenues that come along with the expanded number of playoff teams and playoff games. Perhaps the amount of money they earn off of each contest will diminish somewhat, but the extra added games will amount to an overall gain in revenue.
Goodell is all for the plan and he has let that be known. He said, “What we’re doing now is talking to partners, our networks and our players and making sure that , when we do it, we do it right.” Note that he said ‘when’, not ‘if’.
Meanwhile the big books in Las Vegas wasted no time at all posting the lines for the first NFL games, just hours after the scheduling was announced. Of course, that was to be expected seeing that football season, both college and pro are known as the ‘high-season’ out there in the desert.
NFL fans should start preparing themselves for the expanded Playoffs format, it’s already on the rails and coming down the track.
