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The NFL is getting closer to its long-stated goal of $25 billion in annual revenue.
With Amazon’s new $1.2 billion media rights deal for “Thursday Night Football” taking effect last season, the league brought in nearly $12 billion in national revenue, according to Forbes — a 7% increase over last year’s $11.1 billion .
With teams’ local earnings added in, the NFL likely closed in on $20 billion in total revenue in 2022.
Distributing revenue evenly among the league’s 32 teams, every club received $372 million from the NFL’s national pot last year. The majority of that payment — $249 million — comes from media rights deals totaling more than $10 billion annually.
And the total pot will only continue to grow. This season, YouTube is taking over the rights to “NFL Sunday Ticket” — paying $2 billion annually compared to DirecTV’s $1.5 billion yearly fee.
Despite the huge media rights fee the NFL sees each year, the league reportedly has the option to opt out of each deal after seven years. Should the league choose to do so, it would likely see an even further increase in revenue.
The current media deals could also be back-loaded so that annual payments eventually increase well beyond the average annual value. In that case, even if the league doesn’t opt out, it could still significantly increase its earnings.
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