How Much Money Does the NFL Make in a Year?

The NFL is a money-making machine. In this blog post, we’ll take a look at how much money the NFL brings in every year.

How the NFL Makes Money

The NFL is a business and it makes money just like any other business. The biggest source of income for the NFL is TV money. The NFL has contracts with various networks that give the NFL billions of dollars each year. This is the primary way that the NFL makes money.

TV Rights

TV rights are the biggest source of revenue for the NFL. The league currently has a spotty, complicated web of broadcast deals in place. The most important are the contracts with Fox, CBS, and NBC, which run through 2022 and are collectively worth about $3.8 billion per year. ESPN pays about $2 billion annually for Monday Night Football, while Thursday Night Football is shared between CBS and NBC (they pay about $450 million combined).

Merchandising

The National Football League is the highest-grossing sports league in the world, bringing in an estimated $13 billion in annual revenue. A large portion of that money comes from merchandising, as fans flock to stores to buy jerseys, hats, and other memorabilia bearing their favorite team’s logo. The NFL also licenses its logo to companies that make a wide range of products, from video games to clothing to beer. In 2016, the NFL made $1.6 billion in licensing and sponsorship revenue, more than any other sports league.

Ticket Sales

The NFL is a nonprofit organization, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t generate a lot of revenue. In fact, the League brought in more than $9 billion in revenue in 2016, according to Forbes. A big chunk of that — about $1.2 billion — came from ticket sales. The rest came from things like television deals, licensing agreements, and sponsorships.

How Much Money the NFL Makes in a Year

The NFL is a money-making machine. In a year, the NFL brings in a ton of money from various sources. These sources include TV rights fees, merchandise sales, ticket sales, and more. In this article, we’ll take a look at how much money the NFL makes in a year.

Revenue

All sports are awash in money, but none more so than the National Football League. The richest professional sports organization in the world, the NFL generated $13 billion in revenue last year, according to Forbes. That’s up from $9.7 billion in 2013 and $6.3 billion in 2010.

Where does all that money come from? A big chunk of it—$4.2 billion, to be precise—comes from television rights fees. The other $8.8 billion comes from a variety of sources, including:
-Ticket sales: $1.97 billion
-Licensing and sponsorships: $1.59 billion
-NFL Ventures (the league’s investment arm): $1.27 billion
-NFL Media (the league’s television and digital media properties): $1.24 billion
-Gambling (primarily from legal betting on NFL games in Las Vegas): $226 million

The NFL isn’t just swimming in cash—it’s practically drowning in it. And that figure is only going to increase in the coming years as the league signed new TV deals worth a combined $27 billion last year. The league also recently struck a deal with Verizon that will see the telecommunications giant pay the NFL $1 billion per year for the right to stream games on its mobile devices.

Operating Income

Operating income is the NFL’s main source of revenue. In 2015, the NFL made $1.85 billion in operating income. This is the difference between the money the NFL takes in from things like ticket sales, television contracts, and licensing fees, and the money it spends on things like player salaries and benefits, stadium operations, and other expenses. The NFL’s operating income has grown steadily in recent years, from $1.17 billion in 2006 to $1.49 billion in 2010 to $1.73 billion in 2014.

The vast majority of the NFL’s operating income comes from three sources: television, ticketing, and licensing. In 2015, television generated $3.5 billion for the NFL, or nearly 60% of its total revenue. Ticketing generated $1.2 billion, or about 20% of its revenue. And licensing generated $790 million, or about 13% of its revenue.

The NFL also generates a significant amount of revenue from advertising, sponsorship deals, and other sources. In 2015, these “other” sources generated $610 million for the NFL, or about 10% of its total revenue.

Net Income

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in March that the league made $14 billion in revenue last season. That’s up from $13.3 billion in 2016 and $11.7 billion in 2010, according to Forbes.

Goodell said 97 percent of that revenue is paid out to the teams, with the rest going to operating expenses. He said each team got an equal share of about $255 million last season from national revenues, which includes television contracts, radio deals, NFL Network and postseason ticket sales.

Local revenues, which come from things like stadium sponsorships and suite sales, are not shared equally and can vary widely from team to team. The Dallas Cowboys are worth an estimated $4.8 billion, making them the most valuable franchise in the NFL according to Forbes. The Buffalo Bills are worth an estimated $1.6 billion, which ranks them as the least valuable franchise in the league.

How the NFL Uses Its Money

The NFL is a business and it makes a lot of money. In fact, it made $9.5 billion in revenue in 2017. That’s a lot of money! But where does all that money go? Let’s take a look at how the NFL uses its money.

Player Salaries

The average NFL player salary in 2020 is $2.7 million, up from $2.1 million in 2018, according to data from the (NFLPA). The median salary for all players is $860,000. The NFL has a hard salary cap of $198.2 million per team for the 2020 season. That means each team can only spend that much on player salaries and benefits combined.

Stadiums and Facilities

If you’re a fan of the National Football League, chances are you’ve been to an NFL stadium. And if you’ve been to an NFL stadium, chances are you’ve paid a lot of money for tickets, parking, food, and drinks. The cost of attending an NFL game has become so expensive that the average fan can no longer afford to go to a game.

So how does the NFL use its money? A large portion of the NFL’s income goes into building and maintaining stadiums and facilities. The NFL owns all 32 teams’ stadiums and most of the teams’ practice facilities. The NFL also funds a large portion of research and development for new stadium technologies.

In addition to the costs of building and maintaining stadiums, the NFL also spends a lot of money on player salaries. The average player salary in the NFL is $2 million per year. However, the top players in the league make much more than that. The highest-paid player in the NFL is quarterback Eli Manning of the New York Giants, who makes $21 million per year.

Charity and Community Initiatives

The National Football League gives back to communities across the country through its many charity and community initiatives. One such initiative is the NFL Foundation, which is the league’s nonprofit organization that supports the health, safety and wellness of athletes, youth football and the communities that support the game.

The NFL Foundation grant programs provide funding for youth and high school football programs, as well as for medical research and education related to concussions and other injuries. The foundation also supports players’ charities through its Player Charity Grants program. In 2017, the NFL Foundation awarded more than $4 million in grants to players’ charities, supporting a wide range of initiatives such as youth health and wellness, education programs, community enrichment and more.

Beyond its grant programs, the NFL Foundation also works to improve player safety at all levels of football through its Health and Safety program. This program funds medical research on concussions and other injuries, provides resources and training for coaches on how to prevent injuries, and educates young athletes and their families on the importance of safety in football.

The NFL Foundation’s work in these areas is just a small part of its overall commitment to giving back to communities across the country. Through its many initiatives, the foundation seeks to make a positive impact on the lives of those who love football by supporting the health, safety and wellness of all those involved in the game.