What are the reasons the NFL has gotten so much more revenue? What has changed in the last few years or so? I know American football is big, but it has been big for awhile.
I hear this increase in revenue and net worth especially when mentioning the tenure of the current NFL commissioner, but they never explain why the revenue has gone up.
The article above mentions that TV contracts pay more, but that is begging the question, why are the TV networks willing to pay more? Has the TV audience increased by almost 40% in one year? Seems are hard to believe.
Supply of product is fixed for now, market size continues to increase, new frontiers are staked out in what advertisers are willing to pay to TV networks.
It hasn’t happened all in the last year, of course.
No. But sports are more and more attractive to advertisers anyway, because they are one of the few things that people will watch live on TV, commercials and all.
I’d guess revenue is up in every major sport. I know MLB teams are raking it in with local TV contracts. There are several reasons. One, as mentioned, most people watch sports live. Two, believe it or not and like it or not, fantasy sports puts more eyeballs on games.
TV revenues are driving it, to be sure. But, the NFL and its teams have figured out lots of ways to drive profits, including licensed merchandise, increased ticket costs, amenities at the stadium, etc., all of which have also been increasing dramatically in the past few years.
Wouldn’t that imply that the increase in value of the NFL is not the result of the NFL executives, but circumstance of overall technology making live events more lucrative?
You can find sports businesses where the executives are totally inept and don’t profit hugely such as the Indy Racing League. But most sports are basically gold mines. As 1930s baseball star Bill Terry said “Baseball must be a great sport to survive the owners it has”.
A lot of it has got to be because of fantasy leagues as kenobi 65 mentioned. As sites do stuff to draw more fantasy players, more games get watched, more ad revenue for the leagues. And now the fantasy sites (fanduel and draft kings) are paying a ton for ads themselves.
I’m a first time ff player who never watched games outside of my home team now I’m glued to the tube Thursday, Sunday and Monday. Just cuz of my 4-person free league.
I can’t even imagine a way for Roger Goodell, or any NFL commissioner, to not make money. The NFL is way too popular and there’s no competition.
I don’t closely follow the NHL, but I hear nothing but bad things about Gary Bettman. And yet they are making tons of money through TV contracts, too. I don’t know if Bettman is otherwise inept, they did have the lost season of 04-05, but the league is making money.
Bettman is an unlikeable jerk who doesn’t have any obvious personal interest in the sport of hockey and cancelled a whole season, so hockey fans, especially Canadians who find it endlessly irritating that Glendale, AZ has a team and Hamilton doesn’t, hate him. Traditionalists hate him for shootouts, so on and so forth.
The thing is, of course, that Gary Bettman doesn’t work for the fans. Gary Bettman works for the owners, and from their perspective, Bettman has done an absolutely stellar job. His job is to grow the business and make the NHL clubs more profitable, and he has done exactly that. The NHL has never been more profitable, more popular, or more stable; even granting that Atlanta had to move and Arizona probably will too, things are going better than ever.
One thing Bettman used to do was have a weekly one-hour show on satellite radio where fans could call in and ask him questions. I don't know just how closely the calls were screened- probably very- but while it lasted it was nice. Of course this man has his spin down and it's amusing how he could go from "The Coyotes are not in trouble" to " it's not unusual to advance teams money" to "we are working to ensure the Coyotes a solid financial setting". But I expect no less from any business, labor or political labor.
There was a 20 year period where the NHL had no national USA network contract and now they do. The outdoor games are hugely successful. The online game center is constantly improving. I am not crazy about the shootout but 40 years ago I didn't like ties after 60 minutes. After the 2005 lockout Bettman did consult with players to improve the game. Fighting is way down. Bettman is dishonest in talking about how sports arena help a city grow economically. They can if used with other things.