Roger Goodell is a genius.

Let that marinate for a second.

Roger Goodell is a genius.

Call it the Howard Stern theory. If you’ve ever seen the movie “Private Parts” there is a part in the film where people — both who hate and love Stern — are asked why they listen to his show.

The answer? “I want to see what he’ll say next.”

Goodell — either directly or indirectly — and the NFL have done much of the same. At its roots, the league generally offers a very good product on the field but it’s the way it markets itself outside of the game that has allowed it to grow.

Granted his handling of the Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson cases likely hurt the brand more than helped, yet nonetheless people were talking about the league at a national level.

So of course today was going to be the day Ted Wells’ report came out on whether or not the New England Patriots intentionally deflated footballs before the AFC Championship game against the Colts.

It wasn’t going to be released in February with plenty of momentum still lingering from the Super Bowl, or March and April, which are chock full of storylines leading up to the NFL draft.

May and June are notoriously the quietest months for the NFL. The draft is done and preseason camps don’t start until July, and nothing drums up interest better than some good ol’ Patriots hate.

Wells’ report could have been written in crayon for all I care, because frankly it doesn’t matter what is in it. The NFL had to have known what it was doing by waiting this long to release a report.

The initial accusations kept the NFL on Page 1 every day in the weeks leading up to the Super Bowl, and now that it is a quiet part of the league’s schedule it’s a perfect time to stir the coals and get that fire burning again.

The court of public opinion had already made up their mind on the matter well before Wednesday, which also happens to be the same court that shells out countless dollars a year to consume the many products the league offers.

According to a Feb. 5 article from USA Today, the NFL is hoping to raise its annual revenue to $25 billion – that’s billion with a ‘b’ – by 2027.

The NFL is a business, and if you judge a corporation’s merits on financial gains it’s a damn good one, too. So if anyone is wondering what took so long to determine that members of the Patriots organization are “more probable than not” guilty of what they’re accused of, there’s a simple solution.

Follow the money.

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