The NFL and HOAs

Industry and service providers essential to both groups in their success.

By Scott Swinton

If my math is correct, 6,528 footballs are brought to NFL football games over a regular season. 32 teams x 17 games = 272 games, 12 balls per game per team. You likely know some trivia that makes my numbers wrong, but according to my sources, it’s around 6,500 balls stamped with the moniker “The Duke” hauled onto the gridiron each year.

Wait, not so fast; to head you trivia buffs off at the pass, there are also 8 additional balls provided by the officials for kicking. Again… according to my unofficial sources.

One industry provider hand stitches every last one of them, Wilson. We’ve all handled thousands of Wilson balls from one sport or another. Wilson’s not exactly a monopoly in the professional sports world, but in NFL football, they reign godlike.

It would be superfluous to say that the relationships between Wilson, CBS, Riddell (Helmets), Nike (just about everything else on the sidelines), and NFL football are important. Those relationships are the very essence of the modern game of football.

An NFL team is, according to Forbes, worth on average about $4.5 billion as of 2022. Use the average and multiply by those 32 teams, and you get $144 billion. It’s rough, but it’s a number to work with.

According to ipropertymanagement.com, American homes within HOAs are worth approximately $9.2 trillion. If the NFL finds its service and industry providers essential to their execution of the game, doesn’t it make sense that the HOA industry, 63 times greater than the NFL in value, should place high value on its industry partners also?

We all understand that this comparison breaks down quickly, for-profit vs. non-profit, centralized ownership of the NFL vs. the immensely decentralized ownership in HOAs, impersonal entertainment vs. the very personal nature of our homes, etc. But, the relationship between the industry partners and the owners compares pretty well.

Without footballs, the NFL doesn’t ever get an opening kickoff. Without landscapers and painters, a condo drops in value. Without Riddell, football would be ridiculously dangerous. Without pool vendors, the community pool would be no less fraught. Without CBS and other network providers, the games would play to far smaller audiences. Without management companies, the HOA industry would play like a sort of anarchic dystopian reality show.

Like with football and its suppliers, the relationship between the HOA and its industry partners is the very essence of the industry.

The HOA manager lies at the center of the success of many HOAs. Their skills repel the anarchy, and the management structure has, to date, prevented a dystopian alternative. The HOA manager doesn’t hold the line alone. Striving at their side are their trusty service providers: attorneys, landscapers, accountants, contractors, and arborists, etc. The strike force, when streamlined, works seamlessly and the HOA members can live happily, largely unaware of the machine that facilitates their peaceful coexistence.

When the strike force fails and the machine breaks down, the outcome is predictable. But, keeping the machine running is nuanced, and the machinery has changed over the decades as the grand social experiment called Common Interest Developments has matured into what I believe is now an awkward adolescence.

Cooperation between design professionals like engineers and architects and the aging community is becoming more important. Contractors, once asked to perform routine maintenance, are now being asked to get involved with reconstruction.

As you can imagine, the pool maintenance professional differs significantly from the pool replacement contractor. Same with landscape maintenance and replacement. Same with siding and trim. And yes of course, same with those pesky balconies. Getting the strike force on the same page as the maturing structures is becoming ever more important.

American homes within HOAs are worth approximately $9.2 trillion. If the NFL finds its service and industry providers essential to their execution of the game, doesn’t it make sense that the HOA industry, 63 times greater than the NFL in value, should place high value on its industry partners also?

And that’s just the structures. The role of accountants, attorneys, and other industry consultants is transitioning also. As the grand experiment moves through time, communication between the service providers becomes increasingly important. Each provider relies on the expertise and objectivity of a galaxy of other providers to successfully keep up with the changes. There are no silos available for the modern CID service provider. It’s all glass houses here.

While healthy competition within the specialties is good for the customers, adversarial relationships between the different trade groups will only find the participants left behind. Community managers lie at the center of the system.

Call it a web or a spoked wheel, the impact is the same. The community manager is at the center. Their response to the maturation of the industry is critical to their own relevance. The burden is on the community manager to build relationships with industry providers who will bridge with them into the next phase of the CID lifecycle.

Scott Swinton

Scott Swinton is the General Contractor and Certified Construction Manager at Unlimited Property Services, Inc.