If I were a rich tycoon, I’d definitely have a National Football Team. Ah, an NFL team. NFL football team. I’d own it. One. Maybe eventually two.
I’d call my first team the Porcelain Mice. Maybe I’ll put it in Portland. The Portland Porcelain Mice. But not Portland, Oregon; that place is too trendy, plus it basically burned down during The Protests. At least, I think those were protests or supposed to be protests. It really looked like two hundred days of street brawls. Who do you think is running that whole show anyway? I mean, on both sides of the ball. So to speak. Sorry. But that was a disaster in every way possible, just like my fake passport business in college.
So maybe the Portland, Maine, Porcelain Mice. I hear that place is up and coming. Plus, I think it’s still around, and I’ve never had a lobster roll.
It would be really fun recruiting NFL-caliber players to the Porcelain Mice, which the media and Joe Buck (who I find enthusiastic but irritating, but I guess that’s what folks say about me, so I’d better relax) would affectionately refer to simply as “the Mice.”
As in during the NFL draft, the massively ripped guy I’m selecting would excitedly call his mom and say, “The Mice drafted me in the second round – I’m a Mice, I’m a Mice!” Well, wait: “Mouse, I’m a Mouse!” NFL team names can be singular; I looked it up.
The Portland, Maine, Porcelain Mice will have very progressive cheerleaders. That would be my Big Thing. They’ll be gay, straight, LGBTQ, men, women, they, them…and eventually representative of every race on the planet — I’m not sure how many races there are, probably a lot, so it’ll take a minute to rotate them all in.
Speaking of which, creating all this diversity is going blow the doors off the Cheerleading Industry; I’ll likely soon be known as the Father of 21st-Century Cheer. But it will also create some spacing and layout issues. To solve for this, I’ll happily sacrifice some of the front-row seating in the Mouse Dome (we’ll definitely have a dome, the largest ever built) to incorporate my 800-person, completely globally representative cheer squad. Nobody likes those 50-yard-line front-row fans anyway. In my experience (which is sadly very limited), the more expensive the seat, the more blotto-wasted-crazy the fans get, because rich people are the only ones who can afford the ticket for said seat, 12 beers, and a pretzel (retail value: $4,234).
(I recently learned that all NFL owners profit-share in the alcohol sales at games, as well as any legal fees received by DUI attorneys within 72 miles of the stadium and any bail bond activity within the local metropolitan area. I, for one, don’t have to worry about someone like Jerry Jones profiting from my interaction with law enforcement since I take an Uber to games. Still, I’m certainly uncomfortable giving him $1.00 every time I buy a beer during the event. That’s like giving him $22.00 every Sunday. But it’s mostly because in terms of NFL owner caricatures, I mean, have you seen Jerry Jones? Talk about looking untrustworthy and over-cologned. Which, when I think about it, is exactly how I’d be if I owned a team, so never mind.)
Ahem. Let’s call the cheerleading squad the…ah…well…”the Mice-ettes” is so diminishing…how about we call them “the Fuzzies”? My son has a snake, which means my wife and I have a snake, and in the course of snake parenthood, we’ve learned there are different levels of mice to purchase to feed the slathering monster. In order from small to large: “fuzzies” (which are the cutest), “hoppers,” “small adult,” “regular adult,” and “disgustingly bulbous large.” The government heavily regulates the disgustingly bulbous large ones because they can actually eat your refrigerator if they ever get out.
Plus, based on the amount of body hair our Globally Progressive Cheer Squad will display, “the Fuzzies” seems appropriate. I wonder if we’ll sell a lot of calendars?
But back to the revenue stream, er, the team. The Porcelain Mice. I’d flip the script on the whole ownership model. Sure, I’d hire a General Manager and Head Coach and everything, but I’d basically look over their shoulder the whole time so they know I have their back. The same goes for the players. I may be a horrible athlete and in such bad physical condition that one hit, even at 25% strength, would certainly land me in the emergency room…. I may have never actually played football out of a morbid fear of someone’s thigh sweat dripping through my visor. However, I’d still involve myself in their training, offering lots of tips ‘n’ tricks from my schoolyard days, especially during crucial moments of the game. I think they’d respect me for that.
I’d also involve myself in the uniform design, which is secretly why I’m getting involved with the NFL in the first place. I’d encourage everything, top to bottom, to be in a literal rainbow of colors, to symbolize our operational, coaching, and frankly game management philosophy of just plain not moving too fast, stopping and enjoying the moment, looking for life’s rainbows. Same deal, I’d expect tons of respect for that – and lots of interviews.
Finally, I would literally profit share with all the players and the Fuzzies (cheerleaders are vastly underpaid). I read a football book about the Chicago Bears once (I forgot the title, and I’m too lazy to look it up for you), and I remember the author stated, “…make no mistake, the players make millions because the owners make billions.” Maybe it wasn’t that book – maybe I just read it online. But since I believe it to be true, it’s true, and I only need one simple billion. Multiple billions make you just plain greedy and vain, and I want no part in that. Plus, the players deserve it, given their direct exposure to extreme violence and thigh sweat.
So that’s the Porcelain Mice, featuring the Fuzzies.
Team number two needs some work. I’m open to your suggestions, but before you submit them, you have to sign a form that states you surrender all the rights to your ideas (all ideas in general, not just the NFL stuff). To me.
