The National Football League enters its offseason with plenty of existential challenges ahead. An uncertain labor future with the NFL Players Association. Declining youth participation rates. Continued concerns about the safety of the sport. Weakened franchise health in several local markets. Attendance that hit a 15-year low in 2019. The ongoing lack of coaching diversity. An unresolved ownership dispute involving the Denver Broncos.
For a weaker property, all those issues could mean the beginning of the end. But it’s anything but for the NFL.
The league delivered Super Bowl LIV and capped off its 2019 season with more momentum at its back than it has had in half a decade and perhaps longer. As a result, the NFL showed once again how it is once again not only the top dog in the US pro sports hierarchy, but a commanding force across American and global culture.
Many of the NFL’s core business metrics for the season showed solid growth. Regular-season TV ratings in the US were up five per cent, to 16.5 million viewers per game, the second straight year of growth despite weak on-field performance by many large-market clubs. Sponsorship revenue continues to rise steadily, approaching $1.5bn annually across the league and 32 teams, even as the NFL still takes a slower approach than other properties on legalized US sports wagering.
Super Bowl LIV itself was also a strong performer, with ticket demand tracking at historic levels, Miami serving as a well-received game host, and the Kansas City Chiefs’ late comeback providing the league more storybook lore and generating near-record-level merchandise sales. The game drew more than 113 million US viewers, when accounting for out-of-home viewership, far more than any other program in the country will attract all year.
At a time when the league is preparing to go to market for new TV contracts, there is literally no other content owner operating in the US with their programming in as much demand. And despite all the challenges of media disruption, leaving the task of dividing NFL up games by platform more complex than ever, the league retains an incredibly powerful position and one that promises greater revenues in the future.
And there is even more growth for the league looking ahead. Two massive stadium projects, SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles and Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, will each open this summer in advance of the 2020 season, providing the NFL a pair of new high-end showplaces representing the next generation of venue development.
Las Vegas will also be the site of the 2020 NFL Draft, in advance of the Raiders beginning play in the market. With another robust six-figure crowd size expected following last year’s record-setting turnout in Nashville, the Draft represents the latest step in how the league has turned what is still essentially the reading of names into a three-day fan extravaganza.
International events are also on the rise, with games set for Mexico City in both 2020 and 2021 and the Jacksonville Jaguars doubling their presence in London with two regular season games per year.
And the political pressure from the White House that served to help depress viewership and fan interest in the league has eased.
So it came as little surprise, prior to the Super Bowl, that league commissioner Roger Goodell appeared re-energized, eager for more, and largely dismissing talk of retirement. The 60-year-old, currently under contract through 2023, said he may seek to continue past then.
“Your work is never done,” Goodell said. “I want to put this league in the best possible position. I haven’t thought about retirement. It’s not on my agenda. I’m 100 per cent committed to this job.”
Team owners who were rumored to be interested in selling their teams also have found new energy.
“I have no interest in selling. Zero. Got it?,” insisted Miami Dolphins Stephen Ross days before the Super Bowl. “People can write whatever they want to. I’m an owner until I die. I love it.”
The current groundswell around the NFL, of course, doesn’t mean there aren’t still serious issues to address. And much of that starts with finding common ground with the players’ union and striking a new agreement. The current deal expires after the 2020 season, and the league would like to get something done on the labor front sooner rather than later.
Part of the league push is adding a 17th game to each team’s regular season that in part would help offer something extra for broadcasters who will be asked for higher rights fees in the next cycle.
Beyond that particular topic, there are a wide range of other core issues on the table including overall player health and safety, revenue sharing, retirement benefits, and salary structures.
It’s expected there will still be a bumpy road ahead toward reaching an agreement, and a work stoppage isn’t entirely out of the question. But fueled heavily by the nation’s continued love affair with the NFL, and perhaps one day the entire world’s, the league still has the prospect of many robust days ahead.
“I think if we do our part, we’ll ultimately get to the right place,” said Eric Winston, outgoing NFLPA president. “It just might not be on somebody else’s timetable.”