NFL Owners Finalize Contract Extension for Roger Goodell

NFL team owners have completed a contract extension with commissioner Roger Goodell, just as they’d expected.

The new four-year extension will keep Goodell in place through at least March 2031, when he will be 72, and ensure he oversees negotiations on the next set of broadcasting deals and a collective bargaining agreement with players that could include an 18-game season.

Financial terms of the owners’ new deal with Goodell were not available. But Patriots owner Robert Kraft, the chairman of the owners’ compensation committee that negotiated the extension with Goodell, told fellow owners in a memo obtained by Front Office Sports that the compensation package in the deal is tied almost entirely to performance metrics.

Goodell has served as commissioner since being elected by the owners in 2006 to succeed Paul Tagliabue. Some sources have told FOS in recent months that this might not necessarily be Goodell’s final contract extension as commissioner, although some owners have said in the past they need to begin contemplating potential succession plans for when Goodell finally exits the job.

The league confirmed the extension and said all NFL owners were informed of it by the compensation committee on Sunday. The deal officially expires on March 31, 2031.

The confirmation of Goodell’s extension comes three days ahead of the NFL’s season-opening game Wednesday night in Seattle, with the Seahawks hosting the Patriots. It’s a rematch of last season’s Super Bowl, which the Seahawks won. And it’s the first game for the Seahawks under their newly approved ownership group led by the family of venture capitalist Vinod Khosla.

The Khosla family’s $9.612 billion purchase of the franchise from the Paul G. Allen estate set an NFL record and reinforced the prosperity the league has experienced during Goodell’s tenure.

Kraft wrote to fellow owners in his memo Sunday: 

“Throughout the negotiation process, the Committee worked closely with an independent third-party compensation consultant and outside counsel to structure a deal that aligns Roger’s compensation with the League’s long-term interests and success. To that end, the agreement is heavily performance based, with more than 95% of the total compensation tied to Roger’s and the NFL’s performance measured against various metrics and at the discretion of the Compensation Committee.”

The other owners on the compensation committee include the Giants’ John Mara, the Jaguars’ Shad Khan, the Browns’ Jimmy Haslam, the Cardinals’ Michael Bidwill, and the Broncos’ Greg Penner.

Goodell’s salary is no longer publicly disclosed now that the league office and the NFL’s management council no longer have tax-exempt status.

The owners were told in October 2021 that Goodell’s annual pay was $63.9 million for the 2019–2020 and 2020–21 fiscal years, The New York Times reported then.

The five-year extension he signed in 2017, which took effect in 2019, was reportedly worth up to $200 million, much of it based on performance as determined by several committees of owners.

Some owners and other observers have said over the years that Goodell is worth whatever the owners pay him, based on how much money he has made for them, their teams, the league, and players. The sale price of the Seahawks, a franchise located in a sizable market but not one of the NFL’s largest, represented a 59 percent increase over the $6.05 billion that a group led by private equity investor Josh Harris paid to purchase the Commanders from Daniel Snyder in 2023.

“We believe we are very fortunate to have Roger at the helm for the next four years,” Kraft wrote.

The completion of this deal was viewed in recent months as inevitable. Some owners considered it crucial to retain Goodell, with labor and broadcast negotiations pending.

FOS reported in July that owners expected to finalize an extension with Goodell in the coming months. The owners did not discuss the pending deal with Goodell during their Aug. 26 meeting in Atlanta, at which they ratified the Seahawks sale, but they remained confident the extension would get done, FOS reported that day.

Goodell’s previous contract was set to expire in March. Some thought the extension might be completed and announced at the next owners meeting in October in New York. His previous extension was announced at an October 2023 owners meeting in Manhattan.

Instead, this announcement comes just ahead of a Week 1 slate of games that includes a Rams-49ers matchup in Australia, as the NFL pushes the logistical boundaries of its bid under Goodell to expand its global appeal. That game will be played Thursday night in the U.S. and Friday morning Melbourne time.

It’s believed this deal, like Goodell’s previous extension, did not require a formal ratification vote by the owners because the compensation committee was empowered to finalize an agreement with him.

There was no known opposition among the owners to this extension. Cowboys owner Jerry Jones expressed opposition to a contract extension for Goodell in 2017, although that deal nevertheless was completed.

Player Negotiations

The league and owners have been waiting to launch formal negotiations with the NFL Players Association and executive director JC Tretter, who was elected in March, on a new CBA. The current labor deal runs through the 2030 season and specifically bars the league and owners from unilaterally extending the regular season beyond 17 games.

The NFL could seek to play 16 international games per season—one annually for each team—as part of an 18-game regular season, if that’s enacted.

The NFLPA declined to comment Sunday on Goodell’s extension.

The league and union have had a contentious relationship at times but have managed to work together cooperatively on several recent measures. They jointly announced a new player-accountability system during the league meeting in Atlanta: Any player who violates specified on-field safety rules three times this season will receive an automatic one-game suspension. Any player who has only one such infraction will have half the fine money for that violation refunded at season’s end.

They also combined on a behavioral health initiative that took effect this month.

Players had significant input, league leaders said at the Atlanta meeting, into the NFL’s decision to eliminate the Pro Bowl game while continuing to honor players selected as Pro Bowlers.

The NFL’s current broadcasting deals were completed in 2021 and are worth more than $110 billion in rights fees over 11 years. The league can opt out of those deals early. The NBA’s and WNBA’s broadcasting deals, completed in 2024 and worth about $76 billion over 11 years, potentially pushed the NFL’s price tag significantly higher, given its larger viewership.

Succession Plans

The list of prospective successors to Goodell, whenever he’s done as commissioner, includes Brian Rolapp, the former NFL executive who’s now the CEO of the PGA Tour, and a variety of internal candidates, including Peter O’Reilly, the league’s executive vice president of club business, major events and international. But sources within the league and former and current associates of Goodell say they could envision him staying on the job well into his 70s, given his current energy and fitness.

Joe Lockhart, then the NFL’s top spokesperson, said in 2017 that Goodell planned to retire by 2024. But Goodell declined to confirm those retirement plans that day and said when his 2023 extension was completed that he didn’t know when he would retire.

“We’ll see what the future holds,” Goodell said then. “I don’t know. We’ll see. So I’m not making any commitments other than, for the next three years, I’m going to bust my butt.”