“Pay up, or else,” is the message that Metro is sending to the National Football League regarding special service for last week’s NFL Kickoff celebration. So far, the NFL has refused to pay a $57,000 bill for expanded services to accommodate fans heading to the National Mall for a free concert featuring Aerosmith, Britney Spears, Mary J. Blige and Good Charlotte. The NFL should realize that the fee involved is minimal in comparison to the size of the event. The NFL needs to pay up.
Metro was necessary to make the Kickoff celebration a reality. There is no way to accommodate hundreds of thousands of people going to the Mall without the aid of public transportation. The price of $57,000 to make such a large event possible is not unreasonable.
The expanded service was, in part, based around the NFL’s projected crowd of 200,000 fans. In order to handle the extra crowds, Metro decided to extend rush hour service and keep the system open two hours longer, until 2 a.m. When Metro plans special service, they generally charges the event sponsor $18,000 per hour. If the income from the expanded ridership is greater than the $18,000, the sponsor will be refunded the fees.
Due to weather and other factors, though, attendance was significantly less than expected. As such, the NFL calls foul and believes that Metro’s service expansion was unnecessary. That’s missing the point, however, as they provided the 200,000 projected attendance figure. Simply because circumstances out of both NFL and Metro’s control lead to lower turnout does not let the NFL off the hook. Furthermore, the bill is less than the expected $64,000, because Metro took the initiative to cut down service when it became clear that the estimated attendance number was off the mark. However, there were certain fees, such as driver salaries, which could not be avoided.
For the NFL, $57,000 is pocket change. For the cash-strapped WMATA, $57,000 means much more. Metro just raised rail fare by 9 percent this summer, and is still facing a budget deficit of more than $1.3 billion over the next six years. Metro did its best to accommodate the league, and it has gotten nothing in return. Other promoters (including many charities) have helped Metro cover costs for providing service to events. Shouldn’t the NFL?
