Of course they want a SuperBowl ring, because a SuperBowl ring means more money. Even a SuperBowl loser gets more money than the other teams in the playoffs.
The movie, “Moneyball”, demonstrates that the bottom line is what drives owners and general managers. Why did Billy Beane trade away players at the drop of a hat even if the player had kids in the local school? Why did the Braves move from Boston to Milwaukee to Atlanta? Why do owners sell naming rights to their stadiums? Money. Yes, a 100% stockholder may be willing to forgive a few bucks for bragging rights (we all do), but you can bet he has several people in the back office trying to figure a way to squeeze every dime from the customers. Anyone who is not a 100% stockholder has a fiduciary responsibility to the other shareholders. It’s show business. The game itself is only part of the business. Would you go to a game with no cheerleaders, fireworks, half-time show, or other razzle-dazzle?
There’s always been teams that run at a loss. There’s certainly been plenty of teams that run at a loss in the short run to make a run at a championship. The overall ownership of a professional major league sports franchise has a default setting of “profit”, regardless of the product on the field (see: Dallas Cowboys). Owners are in the business for the fun of winning - they’d likely make a whole shit ton more money spending their giant wad of dough elsewhere (see: Cuban, Mark; Allen, Paul). Hell - why do college football boosters spend bazillions of dollars pumping money into their alma mater? They don’t see dime one from that.
I’m not sure you quite understood the point of that movie.
Owners rarely own their own stadiums anymore - the local municipalities do. They sell naming rights because the ownership of a stadium is usually a giant taxpayer boondoggle, and naming rights are one of the last remaining places they can make any money.
Other than the Green Bay Packers’ unique shareholder situation, I’m unaware of any professional sports team with shareholders. Are you talking about the NFL’s owners having ownership of the NFL?
One other thing DeflateGate does is that it provides the Internet’s Jets and Steelers fans an opening to express their innermost thoughts and feelings to all. That has some serious entertainment value in itself.
