Five reasons the NFL is almost certainly going to profit from the referee debacle

1) Ratings drive the NFL's profits, and your concerns about the fairness and proper administration of the games are irrelevant

The networks throw money at the professional sports leagues in proportion to how many people watch their games. They will continue to throw billions at the NFL and nothing at the professional lacrosse league because you will watch the former and ignore the latter, regardless of inherent credibility of the respective sports. They don't care if you're watching professional wrestling, the NFL or American Idol. Outside of basic decency standards of the FCC, they'll put anything on TV that you'll watch.

Clueless referees making bad calls that prevent your favorite team from winning a game is annoying, but it ain't illegal.

Which brings us to our second point.

It's entertainment, baby!

2) All this controversy is actually driving interest in the league 

I didn't watch the game last night, but I knew what happened because my twitter and facebook feeds blew up . Bill Simmons had an "emergency mailbag" this morning to address the controversy. That means that the NFL is generating more attention than normal this morning and it didn't have to pay for the advertising time.

All this crap has basically made the games "must-see" TV.  You're probably going to tune in next week to see what horrible decisions they make next.

3) This isn't about the referees' contract, it's about showing the players who is boss

The amount of money at issue in this dispute is a rounding error in terms of profitability for the NFL. The NFL are playing big bully with the players. Things didn't work out as well as the NFL wanted with the collective bargaining agreement last year, so they are using any form of leverage they can to show that they have backbone, and they will get what they want.

4) This might just be a cheaper way for the owners to figure out where they stand on anti-trust issues, without having to lose a full season

I haven't heard anyone throw this theory out there yet, but all the same legal issues that impact the players also impact the referees. Perhaps the owners are hoping that the referees will sue for anti-trust violations. Even if the NFL were to lose such a suit, any loss incurred from anti-trust violations would be a fraction of the cost that they would suffer from a comparable loss from the players' union.

And if they won, they'd then know they could go after the players.

5) If the NFL owners didn't want this, they would have made it go away already

You hear a lot of commentators and pundits talk about NFL commissioner Roger Goddell as if he were a wandering dictator severed from all other entities in the league. That's ridiculous. He's a tool hired by and employed for the sole purpose of administering the league in the interests of the owners. If the owners were as upset as the fans and the players, they would have a closed-door vote and make this go away. Until attendance drops and ratings go down, they probably won't do that.

The only leverage that fans have to make this strike go away is to collectively decide not to watch or attend the games. Something tells me that's not going to happen.