Outlook suddenly sunny for Bidwill
April 14, 2003
The Arizona Cardinals are the NFL franchise that has been lazing in the sun. Too much sun, one could say, and not enough franchise.
In an adjoining state are the Chargers. They might not have been all that successful, but compared to the Cardinals, they have been positively vibrant. On one side of Sun Devil Stadium, the Arizona club has been unable to sell tickets on the 50-yard line.
"On the west side, those seats are just warm," said William Bidwill, the team's president. "The east side is hot."
That sun again. When Bidwill repositioned the franchise from St. Louis to Tempe in 1988, he might have overlooked a point. The sun shines in Arizona. To take a seat on the east side of Sun Devil Stadium in August and September is to risk being parboiled.
The team has not had a television blackout lifted in three years, which tells you it has had no sellouts through that period.
One of Bidwill's first acts in Tempe was to institute a ticket-pricing policy that I thought outrageous. In an area where a good percentage of the populace is made up of retired persons, living on limited incomes, he was charging as if every game were the Super Bowl. "The Big Gouge," I called it. He never flinched. He has continued to receive me amicably. His credo, as he detailed it:
"Don't ever let 'em see you sweat."
Bidwill, though, hasn't been able to get it right in the Phoenix area. The team began in Arizona by going 7-9, 5-11, 5-11, 4-12, 4-12, 7-9 and 8-8. The year the Cardinals were 8-8, the Chargers were in a Super Bowl. Two franchises, taking different courses.
Bidwill is well-meaning, and I like it that he has a sense for NFL history and for what roles his family and the Cardinals have had in it. The franchise had its beginnings as the Morgan A.C. in a Chicago in which life for many people centered on saloons. I also must credit Bidwill for having the great and good sense when the club was doing business in St. Louis to appoint Don Coryell as his head coach solely on the basis of a letter Coryell had written to him. Very perceptive of Bidwill.
Coryell is the last coach to have directed this franchise and to have departed with a winning record (42-29-1 from 1973-77). In Arizona, Bidwill has had six coaches, none of whom have remained in place more than five years.
From all this, Bidwill said he has learned one great lesson: "It takes a lot of patience." To his credit, he has not wrapped up all those pretty white headgears with the redbird on the side and fled to the Los Angeles area, although he said there have been those who encouraged him to do so.
"I have had some opportunities," he said, "but I never have been interested. No, never."
I asked him why not.
"My knowledge of the Coliseum," he answered.
I find it ironic that at a time when the future of the Chargers, a far more successful franchise, is uncertain because of stadium issues in San Diego, the Arizona club, as forlorn as it has been, would seem to be secure. Ground has been broken on a new $350 million stadium for the Cardinals in Glendale, about 20 miles from Phoenix on I-10. The team posted $123 million of this sum, 34 percent of which it received from a grant from the NFL's stadium subsidy program, known as *-3. The Fiesta Bowl pitched in $10 million. The remainder is to come from a tax on hotels, motels and rental cars created in a 2000 election.
The stadium's capacity has not been fixed, but Bidwill said it is to seat about 70,000 for special events such as the Super Bowl. Arizona already has raised its hand as a Super Bowl applicant.
There are only two stadiums in the world with the capacities the Glendale facility is to have, by Bidwill's accounting, one in the Orient the other in Arnhem in The Netherlands, where the motion picture, "A Bridge Too Far," was filmed. Bidwill went to Arnhem to check it out.
Meantime, the Cardinals have begun operating like a football team. In Dave McGinnis, they have a coach who is nothing if not passionate. They have Emmitt Smith. Additionally, in free agency they have enlisted quarterback Jeff Blake, free safety Dexter Jackson (the Super Bowl MVP), fullback James Hodgins (a 270-pounder) and linebacker James Darling. They missed on Junior Seau, who would have been perfect in Tempe: a passionate linebacker serving a passionate coach. Seau could have done a good deal worse than banding with McGinnis.
It's a franchise that is finding its place in the sun, another irony. The sun has been this team's enemy.
April 14, 2003
The Arizona Cardinals are the NFL franchise that has been lazing in the sun. Too much sun, one could say, and not enough franchise.
In an adjoining state are the Chargers. They might not have been all that successful, but compared to the Cardinals, they have been positively vibrant. On one side of Sun Devil Stadium, the Arizona club has been unable to sell tickets on the 50-yard line.
"On the west side, those seats are just warm," said William Bidwill, the team's president. "The east side is hot."
That sun again. When Bidwill repositioned the franchise from St. Louis to Tempe in 1988, he might have overlooked a point. The sun shines in Arizona. To take a seat on the east side of Sun Devil Stadium in August and September is to risk being parboiled.
The team has not had a television blackout lifted in three years, which tells you it has had no sellouts through that period.
One of Bidwill's first acts in Tempe was to institute a ticket-pricing policy that I thought outrageous. In an area where a good percentage of the populace is made up of retired persons, living on limited incomes, he was charging as if every game were the Super Bowl. "The Big Gouge," I called it. He never flinched. He has continued to receive me amicably. His credo, as he detailed it:
"Don't ever let 'em see you sweat."
Bidwill, though, hasn't been able to get it right in the Phoenix area. The team began in Arizona by going 7-9, 5-11, 5-11, 4-12, 4-12, 7-9 and 8-8. The year the Cardinals were 8-8, the Chargers were in a Super Bowl. Two franchises, taking different courses.
Bidwill is well-meaning, and I like it that he has a sense for NFL history and for what roles his family and the Cardinals have had in it. The franchise had its beginnings as the Morgan A.C. in a Chicago in which life for many people centered on saloons. I also must credit Bidwill for having the great and good sense when the club was doing business in St. Louis to appoint Don Coryell as his head coach solely on the basis of a letter Coryell had written to him. Very perceptive of Bidwill.
Coryell is the last coach to have directed this franchise and to have departed with a winning record (42-29-1 from 1973-77). In Arizona, Bidwill has had six coaches, none of whom have remained in place more than five years.
From all this, Bidwill said he has learned one great lesson: "It takes a lot of patience." To his credit, he has not wrapped up all those pretty white headgears with the redbird on the side and fled to the Los Angeles area, although he said there have been those who encouraged him to do so.
"I have had some opportunities," he said, "but I never have been interested. No, never."
I asked him why not.
"My knowledge of the Coliseum," he answered.
I find it ironic that at a time when the future of the Chargers, a far more successful franchise, is uncertain because of stadium issues in San Diego, the Arizona club, as forlorn as it has been, would seem to be secure. Ground has been broken on a new $350 million stadium for the Cardinals in Glendale, about 20 miles from Phoenix on I-10. The team posted $123 million of this sum, 34 percent of which it received from a grant from the NFL's stadium subsidy program, known as *-3. The Fiesta Bowl pitched in $10 million. The remainder is to come from a tax on hotels, motels and rental cars created in a 2000 election.
The stadium's capacity has not been fixed, but Bidwill said it is to seat about 70,000 for special events such as the Super Bowl. Arizona already has raised its hand as a Super Bowl applicant.
There are only two stadiums in the world with the capacities the Glendale facility is to have, by Bidwill's accounting, one in the Orient the other in Arnhem in The Netherlands, where the motion picture, "A Bridge Too Far," was filmed. Bidwill went to Arnhem to check it out.
Meantime, the Cardinals have begun operating like a football team. In Dave McGinnis, they have a coach who is nothing if not passionate. They have Emmitt Smith. Additionally, in free agency they have enlisted quarterback Jeff Blake, free safety Dexter Jackson (the Super Bowl MVP), fullback James Hodgins (a 270-pounder) and linebacker James Darling. They missed on Junior Seau, who would have been perfect in Tempe: a passionate linebacker serving a passionate coach. Seau could have done a good deal worse than banding with McGinnis.
It's a franchise that is finding its place in the sun, another irony. The sun has been this team's enemy.
