The 2021 Academy Awards was an affirmation that the NFL is the “king” of broadcasting in the United States. While the film’s gala attracted 2.1 million viewers, the draft of the most important American soccer league in the world reached 12.5 million, five times more.
The pandemic cannot even stop the NFL’s dominance in broadcasting: 76 of the 100 most watched programs on TV in 2020 were from this league’s games, plus, in total during the pandemic, it only suffered a 7% drop in fans, compared to By 20% they lost other events such as the World Championship and the NBA Finals.
With this support, the association entered into commercial agreements with four television stations (CBC, NBC, Fox and ESPN) and the streaming platform (Amazon Prime) for $ 110 billion in 11 years.
This translates into an annual return of $ 10.27 billion, an 80% increase over the last broadcast rights deal, which was $ 5.67 billion.
“The NFL has expanded its gap with other sports and broadcasting features, including special events.” It’s hard to be a major national broadcast network without having at least part of a federation, “says Mark Janice, a sports consultant, in an interview with Forbes. American football. “
New broadcast agreements, from 2022 to 2033, let the NFL make better profits, broken down into its daily marketing: for Monday night soccer, you’ll receive $ 2,700 instead of $ 2,000; On a Sunday afternoon from the NFC, it will be 2,250 million instead of 1,100 million, and for the AFC it will be 2,100 instead of 1,000.
Thursday Night Football, one of the fans’ favorite days, was sold exclusively to Amazon Prime for 1.32 billion instead of the 770 that was paid in the last deal, while Sunday Night has not yet been sold (DirecTV has rights until 2022), but is trading at 2 Billion instead of 1,030, according to research from SportsPro.
The shared interest of the NFL and Amazon Prime is set to captivate the new generations: “During the past five years, we have started migrating to this broadcast.” Robert Kraft, owner of the Patriots and chair of the NFL Media Committee, said in an interview with The New York Times: “Our fans want this option, and the league understands that it is the future.”
This agreement has been submitted with Amazon Prime, as the matches will be broadcast Thursday nights on this platform from 2022 and not 2023, as agreed.
“Prime Video will introduce new programming before, during and after the game, and will continue to offer fan-favorite interactive features, such as X-Ray and Next Gen Stats, which provide a more customizable viewing experience,” says Marie Donoggio, Vice President of Global Sports Videos at Amazon .
These lucrative deals coincide with the NFL’s initiative to increase the season to 17 matches per team, 43 years after it was last increased (in 1978, they went from 14 to 16).
According to Forbes, out of the more than $ 110 billion received from the broadcast, each team will receive $ 321 million annually, but despite that they will not increase their franchise values in the short term.
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