Major League Baseball has more nostalgia and a more storied history than the NFL. The NBA has a massive global following, basketball is played in more nations than American football. And events like college football bowl games, March Madness, and the Olympics have more pageantry than the NFL.

But when it comes to raking in the cash, the NFL is the undisputed king!

 

The NFL Sits on the Throne

According to Statista.com, NFL teams collectively grossed $20.5 billion in 2023. The table below shows how that compares to other leagues. (This table uses 2023 figures since 2024 figures have not yet been published for all leagues).

 

 

While all these pro sports leagues make money in similar ways, the sheer scale of the NFL’s revenue streams sets it apart.

Owning an NFL team is like holding a golden ticket. According to CNBC, as of September 2024, the average NFL franchise is now worth $6.49 billion.

 

Robust Revenue Sharing

There’s basically two main categories of income for NFL teams; there’s a national shared revenue pool and then each team has their own pool of local revenue. You can think of the national pool like one big pot that all 32 teams contribute towards throughout the season, and then the 32 NFL teams evenly split the monies in the national pool 32 ways.

The largest stream into that national shared pool is, by far, the TV contracts. Those contracts accounted for more than 58% of all league-wide revenue in 2023 (more about those contracts in the next section of this article). However, there are a few other streams of revenue going into the shared pool too.

In 2023, each NFL team grossed over $400 million from the national pool of shared monies. This robust revenue-sharing model ensures every team gets a hefty slice of the pie, keeping the league’s financial health strong. Of course, from these monies the teams must pay for team-related expenses, with player salaries being their largest expense.

Important to note, not all NFL revenue is shared by the teams. For example, significant portion of ticket sales are not shared (we’ll explain more about ticket sales later in this article).

In addition, NFL teams don’t share their revenue from luxury suites, stadium naming rights, local sponsorships, local radio deals, concessions and parking, local merchandise stores, and non-NFL events hosted in their stadiums. Revenue from these sources go into each team’s own coffers.

 

NFL’s (Not So) Secret Sauce: TV Contracts

The raw number of professional soccer fans worldwide is higher than the raw number of NFL fans. But the NFL is more lucrative. The NFL grossed more money than the Big Five European professional soccer leagues combined! Why? American TV contracts!

The demand for NFL games in the US is undeniable. According to Sportico.com, NFL games accounted for 72 of the top 100 most-watched TV broadcasts across the USA in 2024.

Furthermore, the purchasing power of American citizens is greater than any other place on Earth, so marketing to Americans is more attractive than marketing to people in most other parts of the world.

Americans love watching NFL games, and advertisers love marketing to American viewers. It’s a match made in heaven.

Right now, the NFL has broadcasting contracts with CBS, Fox, NBC, ESPN/Disney, Amazon, YouTube, and Netflix. These contracts currently run through 2032 (but the NFL can opt out of its deals with all broadcast partners after the 2029 season, except for its deal with ESPN/Disney). These broadcasting contracts brought in more than $12 billion in 2023.

The current NFL broadcasting contracts were signed in 2021 and have had moderate escalators from season to season. Most observers expect the NFL to opt out (after the 2029 season) and to negotiate even bigger contracts.

In the summer of 2024, the NBA inked massive broadcasting deals with ESPN/Disney, NBC, and Amazon that are worth 160% of what their previous broadcasting deals were worth. And in the fall of 2024, NASCAR inked massive deals with Fox, NBC, Warner Bros, and Amazon that are worth nearly 275% of their previous deals.

If the NBA and NASCAR could land 160% and 275% increases, respectively, then what will the NFL be able to negotiate?

 

Big Sponsorships and Gambling

Another stream of revenue going into the national shared pot of monies is league-wide corporate sponsorships. Corporate sponsorships pumped an additional $2 billion into the league’s national shared revenue pool throughout the 2023-2024 season.

The NFL currently has significant deals with brands like Little Caesar’s, Toyota, FedEx, Visa, Gatorade, Anheuser-Busch, Pepsi, Microsoft, USAA, Nationwide, and Amazon Web Services. These brands are attached to various events, broadcast programming components, and awards. For example, the FedEx Air & Ground NFL Players of the Year Awards.

One of the more interesting developments in recent years is the NFL’s embrace of gambling. For most of the NFL’s history, the league made efforts to publicly distance itself from sportsbooks and brands affiliated with gambling.

However, in 2021, the NFL announced operating agreements with FOX Bet, BetMGM, PointsBet, and WynnBET. In addition, they also inked sponsorship deals with Caesars Entertainment, DraftKings and FanDuel. These types of agreements are expected to increase significantly in the years to come, eventually becoming a massive stream of revenue contributing to that national pool of shared monies.

 

Ticket Sales Boom

After the TV deals, tickets and luxury suites are the NFL’s next biggest cash cow, bringing in more than $3 billion in 2023. With each team hosting only 10 or 11 home games (including preseason), demand is sky-high. Ticket prices climbed by an average of 8.6% from 2022 to 2023. The most recent projections assert we’ll likely see double digit price increases for tickets over the next two seasons.

In 2023, the San Francisco 49ers led the way in ticket sales, grossing more than $151 million. In second place, the Dallas Cowboys grossed $145 million and, in third place, the Philadelphia Eagles grossed $129 million. With the Eagles winning their second Super Bowl in seven seasons, many people expect their ticket prices to jump up in 2025 and 2026.

On the other end of the spectrum, the teams with the lowest grossing income from ticket sales in 2023 were the Tennessee Titans ($73 million), the Arizona Cardinals ($74 million), and the Washington Commanders ($80 million).

NFL teams are required to share 34% of their ticket revenues with other teams, but each team keeps the other 66%—with ticket sales varying from city to city, inevitably some teams are going to make more money than some other teams.

 

Luxury Boxes

In addition to typical NFL tickets, teams sell luxury suites and premium seating. This is a massive moneymaker. The Dallas Cowboys led the pack in 2023 at $130 million. As NFL teams plan stadium upgrades and new venues, expanding high-end seating will be a top priority in the years to come.

Revenue from luxury suites is not shared. The local team gets to keep all of it. But this has been a point of contention between the larger-market owners and smaller-market owners. This could be a significant sticking point when the current CBA expires after the 2030 season.

Since these monies are not shared, they don’t count in the formulas used to determine the players’ share of overall revenue. The NFLPA wants this revenue included in those formulas as that’ll potentially serve to boost player salaries. What we could see is a strange unholy alliance between the NFLPA and the owners of smaller market teams.

 

Special Events

NFL teams generate monies from the non-NFL events hosted in their stadiums. Revenue from non-NFL events accounted for more than $1.5 billion in 2023. Obviously, the revenue generated from such non-NFL events varies greatly from city to city—there’s a lot more big events in the bigger cities.

Also, the percentage of total gross revenue generated that each team gets from those non-NFL events varies from city to city (based on the teams’ lease agreements and/or ownership interests).

For example, Cowboys’ owner Jerry Jones gets a higher percentage of the revenue generated by non-NFL events hosted at AT&T Stadium than what most NFL owners get from the revenue generated from such events in their own respective cities because, unlike most teams, Jones has full ownership of the stadium.

 

The Taylor Swift Effect

There’s been a lot of talk about how pop icon Taylor Swift dating Chiefs’ Tight End Travis Kelce has led to many more eyeballs watching Chiefs games.

Apex Marketing firm estimates that Swift’s and Kelce’s relationship has added $992 million to the value of the NFL’s brand since they started dating. However, several other firms and agencies dispute whether the real added value is anywhere near that number.

While the value of Swift’s and Kelce’s relationship is disputable, there is one way Swift has indeed impacted the NFL’s bottom line: Concert revenue.

All of Swift’s shows in the US in 2023 were held in NFL stadiums. Swift’s brand kept all revenue from ticket sales, but paid big venue fees. Also, the events generated big bucks in concessions, parking, and premium seating—much of that revenue went to the NFL teams affiliated with those stadiums.

 

Bottom Line

The NFL isn’t just the most popular sports league in the US—it’s an unstoppable financial juggernaut!

With skyrocketing franchise values, billion-dollar TV deals, and ever-growing demand for tickets, the league continues to print money year after year. And as teams look for new ways to cash in—whether through luxury suites, sponsorships, or major events—the NFL’s reign as the king of sports business shows no signs of ending.