💸 The True Cost Of Big Ben’s Injury

Roethlisberger. Brees. Trout. The weekend was full of injuries ... but who feels it more: the fans or the front office? [View in browser]( [FOX SPORTS INSIDER WITH MARTIN ROGERS] In today’s FOX Sports Insider: Breaking down just how costly these major NFL and MLB injuries can be ... The tragic Dolphins turn to memes for solace ... and the pro football championship odds have shifted dramatically. Injuries to major sports stars are often described as “costly,” but that assessment depends on the type of currency you’re using. Dollars and cents; wins and losses; or bruised feelings and the absence of hope? When the prognosis came down Monday ruling out Ben Roethlisberger for the season — the same day Drew Brees was sidelined for up to six weeks, and when Los Angeles Angels baseball star Mike Trout was shut down until 2020 a few days earlier — the mental calculators of sports fans whirred into action. On the field, the cost is significant. The Pittsburgh Steelers, even at 0-2, were seen as favorites to win the AFC North and even thought to have strong chances at a deep postseason run. Now? Statistics website [FiveThirtyEight]( currently has Pittsburgh on course for a 5-11 campaign, while FOX Bet has Pittsburgh at a highly improbable +6600 to win it all. “It’s super weird, that’s for sure,” Steelers right guard David DeCastro told reporters after the Steelers effectively saw their season go up in smoke with Roethlisberger’s impending arm surgery. “It’s really surreal.” The New Orleans Saints, so dependent on Brees’ reliable arm and sharp mind, also plummeted, with FiveThirtyEight now giving them just a 4 percent chance of lifting the Vince Lombardi Trophy. When asked whether his team could sustain a lengthy Brees layoff, Saints head coach Sean Payton hedged, saying, “We’re getting ready to find out.” [STORY IMAGE 1] Baseball, always the favorite sport of statisticians, has a stat that measures how many victories a player is individually accountable for — and Trout’s Wins Above Replacement (WAR) ranks among the highest ever. Just this season, although the Angels’ season was essentially toast by the time he was sidelined, his WAR of 8.3 led the majors. Getting down to the cold, hard business of it all, one would assume that the idea of a “costly” injury doesn’t just apply to a team’s win-loss record, but also to the bottom line of the front office. Not so fast. Remarkable as it might seem, losing a top player, even one as integral to the team as a star quarterback or MVP candidate, makes only the tiniest blip on the balance sheet. “Of course, being without one of your most influential players can make a real difference to the playing performance,” Dennis Coates, a professor of economics at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County and editor of the Journal of Sports Economics, told me via telephone on Tuesday. “But it won’t have any effect on team revenue, except on the margins.” Coates explained that an injury coming at this point of the season in Pittsburgh looks a little different to one sustained in the summer. By Week 2, season tickets have already been snapped up and paid for. If a ticket goes unsold on the secondary market and remains unused, there could be marginal losses from merchandising and parking, but given that this is Pittsburgh and football, such an outcome is unlikely. “If anything, people might spend more money on jerseys now,” Steelers fan Eric Owens told me. “If Mason Rudolph takes off then I’m going to get his jersey. And you’d be surprised how many people are buying Big Ben jersey as a show of solidarity.” [STORY IMAGE 2] In any case, Coates points out, the bulk of the money received by NFL clubs is unaffected by things like Brees being in the starting lineup, for example. “National television contracts provide the largest share of NFL money, and the Saints and Steelers get the same cut of that regardless of the injuries to Brees and Roethlisberger,” Coates added. “Also, the role of one player varies substantially from sport to sport.” Basketball is the sport most likely to be affected by a star’s absence, given that there are only five players on the court at any time — especially with the NBA’s own marketing strategy has been to leverage the appeal of superstars since the mid-1980s. But even there, the television money more than offsets any loss of ticket sales from an injury. Things are quite different in other countries. For European soccer, the loss of a key player can have swift and crushing financial ramifications. Qualification for the Champions League, Europe’s elite club competition, offers extra riches to major teams and a shortfall for those who miss out. An untimely injury that led to, say, Manchester United finishing fifth instead of fourth and out of the Champions League places could lead to tens of millions of dollars in lost revenue. While television money is also massive in Europe, the reality of relegation is enough to send chills down the spines of the money men. If the absence of a star caused a team to be demoted out of the English Premier League, the anticipation of slashed income could wipe hundreds of millions off a team’s estimated value. And with the market for buying and selling players far more widely used than trades, any injury that reduces a player’s perceived value has a direct fiscal impact. EPL clubs spent $1.9 billion on new players last summer. An injury at the wrong time could hit a club’s bank balance directly if a player valued at close to $100 million suddenly becomes worth half that. American teams are far more insulated from that kind of unpredictability — a proposition like relegation is simply unthinkable. Make no mistake: these NFL and MLB losses are going to hurt, but no one is getting hit in the pocketbook. The cost of seeing Big Ben hobbled or Brees’ finger bent or Trout sidelined is more likely to be seen in the win column, which, to sports fans, is the most painful thing of all. [STORY IMAGE 3] Here’s what others have said ... Jerry Brewer, Washington Post: “The NFL season is just two weeks old, but you ought to check on your franchise quarterback. Knock on his door right now. Bring water, soup, ice, an MRI machine, maybe a few new offensive linemen. Hurry up and find him because, considering how this painful season has begun, trauma is in pursuit.” Liam McKeone, The Big Lead: “Roethlisberger signed a rather large extension this past offseason, and the numbers don’t bode well for Pittsburgh going forward. The extension was worth $68 million over two years, with $37.5 million guaranteed at signing. If the Steelers want to get out of Big Ben’s contract, the time will be after the 2020 season, where they gave themselves an out in the extension he signed back in April.” Jeff Fletcher, Orange County Register: “Since the start of the 2017 season, Mike Trout leads the major leagues in WAR, a cumulative statistic. Over that same span, he ranks 82nd in games played. Those seemingly contradictory facts ought to tell you two things: Trout is the best player in the majors, but he could be even better if he were on the field more.” [IN OTHER WORDS] - [Peter Gammons at]( [The Athletic]( [details]( the player development machine that is fueling the Dodgers’ success. - Does Alabama have a legitimate gripe about early kickoff times? [Pat Forde at]( [Yahoo! Sports]( [weighs in](. - The Reds are refining the optimal approach for a two-way player in the unheralded but extraordinary Michael Lorenzen, [writes Zach Kram at]( [The Ringer](. [THE INTERNET IS UNDEFEATED] [THE INTERNET IS UNDEFEATED]( After trading cornerback Minkah Fitzpatrick to the Steelers on Monday, the Dolphins are firmly in the midst of an all-time tank job. That trade came on the heels of an Aug. 31 transaction that saw Miami ship left tackle Laremy Tunsil, wideout Kenny Stills and a handful of picks to the Texans for a bounty of future draft selections ... including two future first-round picks. Believe it or not, though, the Dolphins do still have players on their roster — and one of those players, cornerback Xavien Howard, summed up the mood with a perfect GIF from the final scene of "Fresh Prince of Bel Air." Chin up, Xavien! Only 14 more weeks to go until the regular season's over. [VIEWER'S GUIDE] Las Vegas Aces at Washington Mystics (ESPN 2, 7:30 p.m. ET) The semifinals of the WNBA playoffs tip off with two Game 1s on Tuesday. The No. 1 seed Mystics host the No. 4 seed Aces in the second of today’s games, with the winner of this series advancing to the finals. WWE Smackdown Live (USA Network, 8 p.m. ET) One night after becoming the 2019 King of the Ring, Baron Corbin will have his official coronation ceremony. Is the WWE Universe fully prepared for the reign of King Corbin? Paris Saint-Germain vs. Real Madrid (B/R Live, Wednesday, 3 p.m. ET) The first matchday of the UEFA Champions League group stage features a massive matchup between French powerhouse PSG and Spain’s Real Madrid. [BET OF THE DAY] [BET OF THE DAY] Pro Football Championship Odds After Week 2 New England: +330 Kansas City: +700 Los Angeles (N): +900 Dallas: +1200 Green Bay: +1300 Two weeks into this season, Tom Brady & Co. seem to be the clear toast of the football world — and wagerers are acting accordingly. 19% of all championship futures since Week 1 have been on New England, according to our insights, driving the price down from +380 on Friday to +333 as we sit here today. Dak Prescott’s squad is also turning heads now that actual games are being played, with Dallas moving from the 10th-most popular title wager before the season started to now the fifth-most backed team on the board. [WHAT THEY SAID] “Injuries made people lose confidence in me, but I never lost confidence in myself.” — Penny Hardaway [FOLLOW FOX SPORTS] [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [YouTube]( [Instagram]( Download the FOX Sports app for live scores and streaming [App Store]( [Google Play]( Available on: [tvOS] [Roku] [fireTV] [androidtv] [XBOX] [Google chromecast] [tvOS] [Roku] [fireTV] [androidtv] [XBOX] [Google chromecast] Forwarded this message? [Sign up](. Trademark & Copyright Notice: ™ and © 2019 FOX Media LLC and FOX Sports Interactive Media, LLC. All rights reserved. Please do not reply to this message. If you do not wish to receive emails like this in the future, please [unsubscribe](. FOX Sports respects your privacy. Click [here]( to view our Privacy Policy. FOX.com Business & Legal Affairs - Manager Digital Media P.O. Box 900 Beverly Hills, CA 90213-0900