You might have read that the Green Bay Packers are selling ownership shares. Which means that, for $250, you can own a share of the franchise. You can’t sell you share (or shares) and it won’t increase in value–but it makes you an owner of the NFL-Super-Bowl-winning franchise that was once coached by Vince Lombardi.

It would look really cool on my LinkedIn profile. But I’m not going to be an NFL owner.

$250 is real money. It maybe buys my next smartphone. It definitely buys lots of pints of beer at the ballpark this spring. But that’s not the problem.

The fine print is.

Ownership has its privileges. And its price.

Page 5 of the Common Stock Offering Document has a clause entitled NFL Rules that reads, in part:

The NFL Rules prohibit conduct by shareholders of NFL member clubs that is detrimental to the NFL, including, among other things… publicly criticizing any NFL member club or its management, employees, or coaches or any football official employed by the NFL.

Which means that, as an owner, I could be fined by the commissioner and/or required to sell my stock back to the organization–for $0.025 per share. (Come to think about it, that’s better than zero. But I digress.) Which means I couldn’t opine about whether Dan Snyder is the worst sports franchise owner since Marge Schott. And I couldn’t tweet that even a 2-year-old has more discipline than the Oakland Raiders. Not to mention that “what’s up with [insert name of player here]” would be off limits.

There’s a point here. And it’s not about American football.

It’s about reading the fine print.

Fining fan-owners of the only public NFL team would be a public relations nightmare. It’s not going to happen (unless someone really provokes it, or behaves in “conduct unbecoming” that defies public mores). But the business reality is that buying into this deal requires limits on your free speech. Not illegal limits–it’s not a 1st amendment issue. But limits nonetheless.

Business is about choices and trade-offs. Before you make your next deal, make sure you understand both.

Photo by Jeramey Jannene (Flickr).

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Brett Favre seems to have forgotten that the NFL is a business. And, from a business perspective, he’s quickly developing the wrong kind of reputation.

Favre has made three key business errors:

• He bad-mouthed his employer. It’s not acceptable, and generally not a smart business practice, to trash your bosses. Technically, he let his mom and brother speak for him. That’s even worse.
• He threw his colleague under the bus. Sure, he’s a terrific quarterback, but someone else has his job now. Lobbying to come back to work is one thing, but in the process of trying to reclaim his job he’s essentially trying to “fire” his successor. Does he care at all about Aaron Rodgers?
• Hubris. He seems to think his employer owes his not only a job, but the job someone else took over when he retired.

I love Brett Favre the football player. His passion, his talent, and his exuberance. But I’m not so fond of the way he’s trying to blackmail his former bosses into shoving aside his sucessor.

Favre might yet succeed in forcing the Green Bay Packers hand. But at what cost to his reputation?

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