By Shakir Muhammad
The 2013 Heisman Trophy winner Jameis Winston has sparked heated debates on the job in the street and in corporate suites over the possibility of playing for a future National Football League team in Birmingham. This new development would afford Metro-Birmingham area’s brightest star athlete a grand opportunity to shine professionally in his own hometown.
However, those debates grew to new stratospheric proportion during the aftermath of the BCS game. Winston’s spectacular game winning drive on the last possession of a hard fought contest has transformed those debates into a foregone conclusion. The question now is how soon Birmingham gets its own franchise for him to operate.
The linking of Winston and Jackson to a future NFL franchise in Alabama’s largest city makes perfect business sense to so many different people on so many different socio- economic levels:
1] It will generate excitement and mass employment across every segment of the regional
economy immediately.
2] It will boost civic pride and raise the level of expectation especially among Afro-American
youth in Birmingham exponentially.
3] It will elevate the city’s national profile and give Metro-Birmingham’s rapidly growing
1.052 million pro football depraved fans a team they can come out to support and cheer for
en masse.
4] It will have a unifying effect and make Amtrak accessible Birmingham a choice destination
for rabid sport fans from every nook and cranny throughout Alabama on game day.
5] It will expand the boundary of broadcast TV and cable sport contracts for stations in
Alabama by far.
6] Winston TV endorsements will increase sales and revenue for more Alabama
manufactured goods from autos to food products dramatically.
7] It will repatriate billion of dollars in tax and revenue back to the city, state, local vendors
and businesses annually.
Birmingham already has the infrastructure and three of the four key building blocks that are essential to successfully attract and support a pro franchise. This includes a big pro style venue- Legion Field, a rapidly growing hardcore fan base and a young proven winner in Winston, who possesses all the innate qualities and athletic ability that is required to justify building a pro franchise around. He has won a national championship, now he is poised to help bring a pro championship caliber football franchise to his hometown. The biggest challenge is to find a smart proactive owner or committed group of young forward thinking investors. Who has the financial power and guts to purchase a franchise, relocate it to Birmingham and position themselves to make Winston the club’s number #1 overall draft pick and franchise quarterback.
Bo Jackson knows the business of pro sports especially football and baseball. He has expressed interest in a number of business ventures in the Birmingham area. He would be instrumental in using his clout and connections in the banking industry to assemble a group of financial investors to help seal the deal. It also remains to be seen whether he will join forces with former AU alumni Charles Barkely and Frank Thomas to help push this gigantic multi-billion dollar job producing project across the goal line. The good news is all interested parties still have a two year window to make it happen. This includes time to formulate plans, work out logistics, elicit public support and finalize a deal to construct a 100,000 thousand seat multi-purpose dome statium for the new franchise.
