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Philly.com article
JON BON JOVI is many things to many people.
To most, he's a mega-rock star who continues to crank out hits.
To some, he's the boss; the owner of a successful franchise in the Arena Football League. He has three basic rules for his players: stay out of trouble, play hard and stay out of trouble.
And to a few, he's the guy that's helping build 15 houses in North Philadelphia.
Yesterday, as the Soul opened their fourth training camp, Bon Jovi sat down with the Daily News and discussed a variety of issues, including his aspirations on becoming an NFL owner, why the Soul have an awkward bye in Week 1 and what might cause him to never attend a Soul game again.
Q. What's your take on ESPN owning the rights to your league rather than NBC?
A. I don't mean this as any slight because I can already hear Commissioner [David] Baker calling to reprimand me, but in the grand scheme of things NBC was more about entertainment. ESPN is in the sports business. The exposure should grow across their variety of channels. Even if it's something as simple as ESPN Classic showing our playoff game from last year during off hours, people's awareness of our league will increase. We're in seven primetime games and they'll be able to do proper profiles to build stars of our league. There won't be 63 cutaways to the owner's box [to show Bon Jovi] during our games.
Q. Do you have any interest in becoming an NFL owner?
A. Sure. Everybody would love to be a part of that league. The reality of it is that you can buy a small European country cheaper than you can buy an NFL team, and you can't even buy an NFL team. There's two types of owners: the Mara family, the Rooneys - and then there's the Bob Krafts and Jeff Luries. Is it a dream? Yeah, I'd be lying if I told you I wouldn't love to have an NFL team. It sure would be nice not having to go door-to-door begging people to come to games and begging for sponsorship. But, at the same time, owning an NFL team is a whole different set of headaches and heartaches, I'm sure.
Q. With the Sixers and Flyers having down seasons, do you sense an opportunity to get your team into more Philadelphia households?
A. We're trying some different things, but I'm just preaching the same song: It's affordable, it's accessible, you're going to get that autograph after the game, but you're also going to see us on television. That's what differentiates us from the Wings and Phantoms and we're more affordable than the Flyers and Sixers.
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