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The National Football League is cutting about 14 percent of its workforce and freezing salaries through 2009 because of the global economic slump.

The U.S.’s most-watched television sport plans to reduce its staff of 1,100 by about 150 employees at three league facilities: its New York City headquarters; the NFL Films production facility in Mount Laurel, New Jersey; and production facilities for the NFL Network and NFL.com in Los Angeles.

The U.S. recession that began a year ago has also taken a toll on other sports leagues. The National Basketball Association in October announced it would cut 9 percent of its workforce, two baseball teams are firing front-office staff and U.S. PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem said last week that prize money will “certainly flatten” over the next few years.

“These are difficult and painful steps but they are necessary in the current economic climate,” Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a staff memo. “I would like to be able to report that we are immune to the troubles around us, but we are not.”

The league will offer a buyout to U.S. employees with at least five years of experience, the memo said. Salaries will freeze through 2009, along with new hires.

NFL Films Cuts

NFL Films, the league’s documentary company, fired 7 percent of its workers in March. Goodell said in October that the league and its 32 teams had slashed expenses to save “a significant amount of money” and hoped to avoid job cuts.

Andrew Zimbalist, a professor of economics at Smith College, said the four major U.S. sports leagues were being “hit very hard” by economic turmoil. Teams have suffered as corporate sponsorship dollars have evaporated, while owners’ own portfolios decline with the markets.

“It’s true that in previous recessions, since 1950, attendance has held up,” Zimbalist said. “But most of those recessions were when ticket prices were a heck of a lot lower than they are now.”

The NFL in November cut playoff ticket prices by an average of 10 percent in response “to the economic challenges facing fans.” The average regular-season NFL ticket costs $72.20 this season, an increase of 7.9 percent from last year’s $67.11, according to Team Marketing Report of Northbrook, Illinois. The cost of taking a family of four to the game, including tickets, beers, hot dogs, soft drinks, parking and ball caps, rose 7.1 percent to $396.36, according to Team Marketing Report.

Slipping Profit

Goodell said rising costs have narrowed margins for teams in a league with annual revenue exceeding $7 billion.

The cost of financing stadiums has climbed, making it a factor in the league’s negotiations with the players’ union, Goodell said. Owners voted unanimously in May to opt out of the NFL’s collective bargaining agreement with players after the 2010 season.

Teams including the New York Giants have had interest rates on stadium bonds climb to as much as 22 percent this year, while states such as Indiana have paid as much as 15 percent on publicly financed stadium bonds. About one-third of the league’s teams -- including the winners of four of the past five Super Bowls -- play or will play in stadiums financed by bonds that have risen as much as fivefold this year.

London Travel Cut

The NFL cut the number of U.S.-based staff traveling to its October regular-season game in London by about 10 percent in an effort to save money. In November, the league reduced playoff ticket prices by an average of 10 percent because of “the economic challenges facing fans.”

NBA Commissioner David Stern said in October that the league will cut about 9 percent of its U.S. staff as season- ticket renewals slow and the economy declines.

Baseball’s Arizona Diamondbacks and Toronto Blue Jays are firing a combined 55 front-office workers, according to the Arizona Republic and Toronto Star, and MLB’s headquarters in New York isn’t increasing spending for the first time in four seasons.

“The notion that professional sports leagues would be immune to a severe recession is fanciful,” Zimbalist said. “These kinds of cutbacks and economizing moves are all over the place.”

(Source: Bloomberg)