Bill Polian was the architect of a Buffalo Bills team that went to four straight Super Bowls in the early 1990’s. He later became General Manager of the expansion Carolina Panthers and helped build a franchise that ultimately made the NFC Championship game in its second year of existence. He has served as President and General Manager of the Indianapolis Colts since 1997, during which time the team won its first Super Bowl title. During a recent visit to Harvard, Mr. Polian sat down with the HPR to discuss the NFL and its municipal, national, and even international impact.

HPR: How would you assess the competitive balance in the NFL and how do you think it compares to that of the other professional sports leagues?

Bill Polian: I think our competitive balance is the best of any professional sports league. If you look at the NBA, it’s lopsided West to East. The NHL is getting better, but the big-market, high-payroll teams are still dominating, and hockey people—of which there are many here at Harvard—will tell you that’s the way it seems to be going , despite their new collective bargaining agreement. Baseball, for years, has been dominated by high-revenue teams. The luxury tax has helped some, but the Yankees and the Red Sox have sort of tacked away from free agency and toward the draft, and now, because of their resources, they are able to sign players who can’t be signed by low-market teams: witness [Red Sox outfielder Jacoby] Ellsbury, [Red Sox pitcher Clay] Buchholz, and the young pitchers with the Yankees.

We, because of our salary cap and because of our revenue sharing policies, have remained very competitive year-in and year-out. It’s not uncommon, as you know, for a team to go from worst to first in its division in one year based upon a good draft, or a really productive free-agency signing period. We hope to keep that up.

That is one of the reasons there is some unrest with respect to our labor agreement, because in the end what makes the NFL so popular is a phrase coined by Commissioner Rozelle many years ago, which said that on any given Sunday, any team can beat any other team, regardless of record. That has held true; no other sport, in essence, can say that. But, as the disparity in revenues between clubs in the NFL grows, that becomes a much larger concern.

HPR: How do cities benefit – other than economically – from having professional sports franchises located there?

BP: It’s often been said by any number of people in politics and the media that the Washington Redskins are the one rallying point in a diverse, cantankerous, cranky city where everyone’s at everyone else’s throat most of the time. Everyone can rally around the Redskins and support them. So, there is that part of it.

The other part of it will come to fruition when we open on Sunday Night Football on the first Sunday night of the season at our new stadium, which the Mayor [Bart Peterson of Indianapolis] is 110% responsible for having built. The publicity that will generate for Indianapolis is probably worth tens of millions of dollars if you went and purchased thirty-second spots on the open market just to promote your city. If you watch Chris Matthews or CNN, as I’m sure you all do, you see the Michigan economic spots. Well, those are thirty-second spots. Those cost a lot of money to put on. We’re getting three hours worth of free publicity for the city of Indianapolis, for the new stadium, for the convention center, for Indianapolis as a home for conventions, and as a destination for business, all in one three-and-a-half or four-hour show. The value is incalculable.

I’ll share a story with you. I was speaking to the Indiana Society of Civil Engineers and at the end of the talk I took questions. An elderly gentleman in the back of the room stood up and said to me, “I was in Northern Tibet, building a bridge and it was a program that was run by a government consortium. They asked us to stand up and identify our company affiliation and where we were from.” So he stood up, and mentioned his company and said he was from Indianapolis, Indiana. One of the government ministers said, “Oh, Peyton Manning and Marvin Harrison! I saw them on Monday Night Football!” So, what’s the value of that? It’s a great story. It shows the reach that the NFL has both here and around the world.]]>