NFL

For most leagues, the NFL’s 2007 would have been an unqualified disaster. One of its stars, Michael Vick, was accused, charged and imprisoned for dogfighting. Barely a week went by without a player arrest. The league’s high-profile media channel lost ground. Labor unrest began to percolate. And there was that little matter of Spygate, the episode in which the New England Patriots illicitly taped the New York Jets’ sideline signals during their game.

Of course, in 2007 the NFL set attendance records, and the Super Bowl broadcast was the second-most-watched program in American TV history. The Patriots’ run at perfection, ending in the Super Bowl, captivated national attention.

Whether because it is the Teflon league or because Commissioner Roger Goodell ably handled the crises, the NFL remains the runaway most popular sport in the country.

“It is still the gold standard. Nothing that has happened has diminished interest in the league,” said Sal Galatioto, founder and chairman of Galatioto Sports Partners, a sports investment bank and lender. “There is no doubt that it is the dominant league.”

League revenue has surged past $7 billion, and Goodell’s crackdown on player conduct is credited with keeping a lid on the league’s image spiraling out of control. His move to play games overseas may have finally unlocked foreign potential for a sport seen as landlocked.

Games will now be played annually in London, and the Buffalo Bills are even committed to a home game a year in Toronto. Goodell scrapped NFL Europa, realizing that the real product was the only way to market to lands where “football” means soccer.

New stadiums are coming on board this year for Indianapolis, next year in Dallas and then 2010 for the New York Giants and Jets, who will share their venue. That should fund a further revenue gusher that the players union has projected will take the league to more than $9 billion a year. The NFL’s stadium funding program was indispensable to making these projects possible.

Not lost in the mix is the league finally settling on a revenue-sharing plan through 2009 that should keep low-revenue teams from slipping deep into red ink. That thorn had stuck in the side of the league for several years, but in March 2007 the NFL finally approved a new deal to help out struggling teams.

The league also brought its Internet operations in-house, and signed its first secondary-ticketing deal with Ticketmaster. Video views on
NFL.com are surging as a result of the league’s new strategy.

But challenges abound. The owners have decided to opt out of the collective-bargaining agreement early, which will make 2010 the last year of the deal and one without a salary cap. Owners have complained that the CBA gives too much money to the players.

Meanwhile, the league has been unable to reach a settlement with the top cable operators for NFL Network distribution. The league filed a complaint with federal regulators, but barring a favorable outcome in Washington, D.C., the league may find itself in the rare position of having to retreat.