The Atlanta Falcons are headed to Super Bowl LI, making it to the pinnacle of the NFL for just the second time in franchise history and for the first time since Arthur Blank bought the team in 2002.
The Falcons owner is pretty thrilled about the trip, having spent part of Sunday night dancing like a wild man on the stage after Atlanta thumped Green Bay 44-21 in the NFC Championship Game.
He's even ponying up a bunch of money to ensure everyone involved in the Atlanta organization gets to see the Falcons play for a Super Bowl title.
It's an incredibly classy gesture by Blank. Granted, he's a really rich person, but this isn't something that's cheap.
There are roughly 150 people listed on the Falcons official staff directory page, operating in one capacity or another with the team. It's safe to say that there are probably more people involved as well, employees who aren't listed on that page. (No telling what criteria is needed to be met.)
So Blank is going to need to pony up for a ticket to the Super Bowl for all of these people (let's get super conservative and set the price at $2,000 per person). He's going to have to fly everyone to Houston (or bus or charter something for everyone) and he's going to have to put people in hotels.
It's not unreasonable to project something in the range of $3,500 per person for the trip and it's not unreasonable to project more than 300 employees making the trip for the Falcons.
The math on that? Over a million bucks coming out of Blank's pocket in order to pay for employees to head to Houston and potentially see the Falcons win their first Super Bowl.
Financially, the victory would be worth well more than that for Blank, but the move to bring all the employees to Houston is a tremendously magnamious one.