The NFL's viewership increase comes as the league prepares to renegotiate its TV dealsGETTY IMAGES
The NFL is "booming once again, further cementing its position as the king of U.S. sports," as the league's TV viewership "surged during the most recent season for the second straight year," according to Novy-Williams & Soshnick of BLOOMBERG NEWS. The league's viewership climbed even as TV watching "declined overall," with a "remarkable 41 of the 50 most-watched programs on TV last year" being NFL games. The increase "comes at a propitious time" for the NFL and Commissioner Roger Goodell, as the rights to broadcast the "media world's most coveted asset is now up for grabs for the first time in a decade." Goodell has "begun renegotiating television deals" with CBS, Fox, NBC and ESPN that "expire in the next two years." With digital companies like Apple and Google likely to be involved for the first time, experts said that the NFL "could pull in as much as 35% more than the roughly" $6.5B it now gets annually. Novy-Williams & Soshnick note there also is a "possible labor battle" on hand, as the current NFL CBA expires after the '21 season. The prospect of "new, richer TV deals have already factored into talks, and may help facilitate a new deal." Analysts said that they "can't imagine Fox, CBS or other networks doing anything to jeopardize their rights at a time when record users are leaving live television for the fractured world of digital streaming" (BLOOMBERG NEWS, 1/29).
LOOKING AHEAD: The AP's Eddie Pells wrote NFL viewership has seen two straight years with an uptick after a two-year stretch during which the league's "status as the king of American sports took a hit, due in part to President Donald Trump's withering criticism and, more broadly, to the league's problematic handling of myriad problems that came fast and furious." Univ. of Oregon Warsaw Sports Marketing Center Academic Dir Bettina Cornwell said, "The NFL is in a better space leading up to the ... Super Bowl, than they have been in a few years." Pells noted the NFL "took advantage of trends that have been evolving for a decade or more," including positioning itself to "take advantage of the more recent expansion of legalized gambling." The NFL signed a marketing deal with Caesars Entertainment at the beginning of '19. Meanwhile, with one year left before the end of the current CBA, there "appears to be far less friction between the league and its union than last time they reached this point" in '10. If the "tacit acceptance of gambling felt like a seismic shift, the next contract could bring another:" Last year, the league and NFLPA "announced the formation of a committee to study and assess alternatives to painkillers -- a signal that a long-sacrosanct ban on marijuana could soon be relaxed" (AP, 1/27).
