The NFL, or the National Football League, is the most competent and prominent American football association. It is home to thirty-two energetic teams who are skillful and aggressive on the field.
The NFL is one of the wealthiest associations in the USA, with a net worth of billions of dollars.
Last year the association made a whooping sum of 142 billion USD in total by combining the net worth of the teams in the National Football Conference and the American Football Conference, which was 12.2 billion USD in 2021.
Among the NFL teams, the Dallas Cowboys is the wealthiest, with a revenue of 8 Billion USD, while the Cincinnati Bengals is the last on the list with 3.08 billion USD, which is still an extraordinary amount.
These NFL teams make billions of dollars annually through various strategies. Here, we will discuss the money the NFL teams make annually and their sources of income.
Ticket sales
Ticket sales are one of the sources of income for NFL teams.
Each team earns a minimum of 151 USD per seat ticket during games, which are often always sold out.
There are around 70 thousand seats in an average NFL stadium. By maintaining their stadium and increasing the capacity to host more audiences, the NFL team can make more money than the average millions of dollars they already make.
In a typical game, the NFL teams make around ten million USD from a single sold-out event.
NFL makes millions of dollars from ticket sales, but compared to the money made from other sources, it is still less.
Rentals
Another way the NFL teams make money is by allowing different food and beverages to sell their product in their stadium during the game.
The amount the teams charge to these sellers might not be much at once, but in the long run, even these rentals make a good amount of money for the NFL teams.
The teams surely add a good amount of money through these vendors after every game.
Broadcasting Rights
Besides utilizing their stadiums to make money, the NFL teams make more money by selling broadcasting rights to TV and radio.
Different renowned sports channels, such as ESports, Amazon, etc., buy broadcasting rights from the NFL teams with handsome pay and then telecast these games.
Football is the most watched sport on TV, and despite people shifting from TV to phones and computers, the NFL still has a great hold on people who watch its live games on TV.
It allows the NFL teams to sell the broadcasting rights at the sum they want, often multi-million dollars. It is the prime source of income for the NFL teams.
Sponsorships
The NFL teams also make tons of money through sponsorship deals.
Different corporations pay the NFL teams to display their logos on the uniform of the NFL players in exchange for monetary rewards that can be up to millions of dollars.
These sponsors pay millions to get their name or product associated with the team or the team players.
These kinds of sponsorships often include franchising and naming rights. According to reports, NFL teams make multi-million dollar deals with corporations just for the naming rights.
Gambling Franchise
Before 2018, gambling or betting in sports was illegal, but after 2018, the court gave the authority to the state government to decide whether they wanted to legalize it.
Considering the taxes added to these betting, many states allow sports betting, which resulted in more money for the NFL teams.
The NFL teams either make partnerships with casinos or set up their betting parlor or even organize online betting, which will add more money to their name.
Sports betting was already a 150 billion USD industry before states made it legal, and it has grown even more over the years after getting legalized.
Merchandising deal
Lastly, the NFL teams make millions of dollars annually through merchandising deals.
The teams or the NFL itself sign contracts with renowned brands to make them NFL’s licensed vendors.
The brands pay an additional 100 thousand USD to the NFL as a royalty guarantee that they should pay annually to the NFL teams.
Once these brands obtain a license from the NFL, they can sell the NFL merchandise to the distributors. It is also one of the prime sources of income for the NFL team, which adds more than six digits to the team’s wealth.
Though the Dallas Cowboys is the wealthiest among the NFL teams, other teams also make hefty sums worth billions.
No team makes an annual revenue that is less than a few billion.
They earn majorly from broadcasting rights, merchandising, and licensing, which is in tens of millions. Besides this, they also add millions of dollars in other ways included in the list.
