Digital Journal — The irony is almost too strong to stomach. Sunday’s 40th Super Bowl will hit the turf on Ford Field in Detroit. Yes, Ford Field, its logo emblazoned at the cost of $40 million (all figures US) by Bill Ford Jr., the CEO of Motor City’s resident automaker. It’s a stark reminder that pro football’s carnival event is taking place in a city crippled by an economic crisis sparked by Ford Motor Co.’s recent announcement: The company will lay off 30,000 workers and close 14 plants by 2012. The CEO called the reductions “painful sacrifices to protect Ford’s heritage.”
Enjoy the touchdown dances, folks.
Sure, the match-up between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Seattle Seahawks swells every football fan’s heart with pride. Finally, a game worth watching, two teams worth applauding for their gritty on-field effort.
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Then there’s Ben Roethlisberger, the Steelers hero some are calling the best young quarterback since Dan Marino. And Seattle’s running back Shaun Alexander is racking up so many 100-yard games, defensive lines are suffering collective whiplash. Alexander earned $6.32-million this year — a salary that employees at Detroit’s Wixom plant will never see, even if they pooled all their money together. Two weeks before the game, Ford told its 1,600 workers the Wixom plants will shut down.
But with the Super Bowl in their hometown, many locals will want to see the big game. And this is where the story gets that much more twisted. Tickets to the game cost a $600 (face value, before scalpers quadruple everything) and for a group that tries to book a suite on Ford Field, it will go for a wallet-raping rate of $261,000 (for 40 people). This is the same city where the median house price is $169,000. For anyone who wanted to escape for a few hours to see the game, it’s been priced right out of affordability.
The Super Bowl Sunday has become a ridiculous parade of advertising and corporate branding, and this year we’ll see it more than ever. It is now America’s game of excess, where corporations flog their wares in $2.5-million commercials.
In Ford’s case, they are set to air a 30-second commercial at a time when it’s undergoing a financial meltdown — sales dropped from $3.5 billion in 2004 to $2 billion last year. That’s a $1.6 billion pre-tax loss in the North American automotive operations. Here’s hoping (for Ford’s sake) that football fans will actually sit and pay attention to commercials.
All this surreal background noise in Detroit is secondary to Ford’s larger plan to make over the company into a greener more compassionate automaker. The company says it will pour billions into producing eco-friendly factories and cars, most notably hybrid gas-electric models. It looks like the embattled company is gambling its reputation as an SUV-heavy, macho-car American legend. But as Ford Jr. told Time recently: “Is this risky? Of course it’s risky. But I tell you what: Going the way we were going is the highest risk of all.”
Ford’s restructuring will be a challenge but perhaps the automaker need not look far for inspiration. This Sunday, it can learn a thing or two about success amidst competition. Scoff at the negative criticism, as Steelers coach Bill Cowher does. Jump from sinking ships, as Seahawks coach Mike Holmgren did when he left the pathetic Green Bay Packers to join a winning club. Put on a brave face when a bad news blitz hits hard, as Detroit did this month.
And if all else fails, hope that the money hoarded to pay for TV commercials works as well as it did for the Budweiser frogs. There are many more jobs on the line.
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