Success Quote by Art Modell

There is a whole philosophy of power tucked into Modell's bland, boardroom syntax: make a seismic structural change sound like a collective warm-up exercise. "That got us started" frames revenue sharing not as a hard-fought redistribution battle but as a natural next step, the kind of managerial common sense that simply happened once reasonable people sat down. It's corporate modesty with teeth.

Modell is talking about the NFL's most consequential economic invention: turning a league of competing franchises into a cartel that sells the product together and spreads the money around. The genius of revenue sharing is that it makes parity a business model, not a moral stance. Small markets can compete, owners can keep costs predictable, and the league can negotiate TV deals as a unified machine. Calling it "revenue sharing" softens what it really is: enforced solidarity for private profit.

The second clause is the tell. "We couldn't have done it without all the teams" reads like gratitude, but it's also a reminder of how legitimacy works in sports capitalism. These arrangements require the consent of rivals, or at least the performance of consent, because the league's strength depends on every owner believing they're better off inside the tent than outside it. Modell's line flatters the collective while subtly asserting an insider's authority: the owners didn't just play games; they built an economic system. Fans hear competition. Owners, in this sentence, hear cooperation as strategy.