The NFL closed out 2023 with 93 of the 100 most-watched broadcasts on U.S. television, across all programming. That’s not much of a surprise given the dominant status of the league for years. But the still-rising media power of the NFL is in part the result of several key initiatives this past year that have paid off handsomely. 

Super Bowl LVII last February and its average audience of 115.1 million viewers led the NFL’s 93 top-ranking games. That number is up from the NFL’s prior record of 82 on the 2022 list, and it’s way up from the 61 NFL games on the 2018 list. 

So, what changed? The NFL in 2023 did not have competition from some major television draws, such as an Olympics or a U.S. presidential debate, and the top non-NFL broadcast last year was the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade (No. 23), which drew an average of 28.5 million viewers to set its own event record. But the overall results still were fueled by a series of league efforts, executed along with its domestic TV partners. Such as:

• A heightened presence on Christmas Day, including a tripleheader of games involving Super Bowl contenders. That league scheduling decision resulted in banner ratings on the holiday. 
• A 24% jump in Amazon’s average audience for Thursday Night Football, which set a streaming first by gaining two slots on the top 100 list. The first: a Nov. 30 Seattle Seahawks-Dallas Cowboys game that set an NFL streaming record with an average audience of 15.3 million and ranked 98th. And a Sept. 14 Minnesota Vikings-Philadelphia Eagles game ranked 100th with an average audience of 15.05 million. Amazon made a concerted effort to boost its audience in Year 2 of its exclusive TNF coverage with a series of new programming elements.
• An expanded role for ABC with ESPN’s Monday Night Football games, helping fuel a 33% boost in viewership, to an average of 17.1 million, the best in the game window’s ESPN era, which began in 2006. MNF showed up on the top 100 list 12 times. In addition to wanting to reach additional viewers with the broadcast exposures on ABC, the recent actors’ and writers’ strikes created a dearth of entertainment programming that MNF helped fill on the network.
• Further growth in the NFL’s established dominance on Thanksgiving, which once again included the year’s top regular season game of the year, with an average audience of 41.8 million for the Washington Commanders-Dallas Cowboys late afternoon game, ranking fifth on the top 100 list.

Altogether, it’s further evidence of the NFL’s clearly stated aim: to be everywhere it can with its 272 regular-season games and 13 playoff games.

MetLife Stadium is doing everything it can to squeeze the highly sought-after final match of the 2026 FIFA World Cup into an 82,500-seat venue that’s primarily home to the NFL’s New York Giants and Jets.

NFL fields aren’t wide enough to meet FIFA regulations for soccer pitch sizes. Another venue in the running for the final, AT&T Stadium in Dallas, is making renovations to accommodate the World Cup, while SoFi Stadium’s reported resistance to do so is complicating the status of Los Angeles, once seen as an attractive option to host the final.

Now, the New Jersey venue is planning to remove 1,740 seats to widen the field for World Cup matches, according to The Associated Press. NFL fields are 53.3 yards wide, and MetLife Stadium has previously used a field 70 yards wide for soccer matches but FIFA requires 75 yards of width.

Work on the seat removal won’t happen before MetLife Stadium hosts matches at this summer’s Copa America, which will be run by the North and South American soccer federations. After the World Cup, removable seating sections will replace those that were taken out. Additionally, MetLife and AT&T stadiums, along with six other U.S. host venues, will have to replace their artificial playing surfaces with natural grass for the World Cup.

And Then There Were Two

Beyond the field issues, Los Angeles Rams owner Stan Kroenke is reportedly feuding with FIFA over revenue sharing for the World Cup, in all likelihood taking SoFi Stadium out of the running for the final match.

In an attempt to bolster its bid, AT&T Stadium (which typically can fit up to 105,000 fans, factoring in standing-room-only areas) announced in 2022 that its field level would be raised by 15 feet to accommodate a wider playing surface. That move will cut off some lower-level seating, but the stadium is still expected to hold about 90,000 fans. And organizers have pitched a ticketed event that could attract 200,000 fans with watch parties at AT&T Stadium’s two neighboring venues, the current and former home of MLB’s Texas Rangers.

Earlier this NFL season, FIFA president Gianni Infantino visited both MetLife Stadium and AT&T Stadium. And in November, New York City mayor Eric Adams and New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy penned an op-ed for Front Office Sports, pitching MetLife Stadium’s bid for the World Cup final.

The Tampa Bay Rays are not rebranding to become the St. Petersburg Rays, despite the wishes of some local politicians and business leaders. But there is a growing discussion in St. Petersburg about other ways to use a planned $1.3 billion ballpark, which the city will partially fund, to showcase the city, highlighting the delicate nature of public funding for sports facilities—even after the framework of an agreement is completed.

A hearing Thursday of the St. Petersburg city council focused in part on ideas designed to deliver a return on the $600 million in public money already pegged for the stadium project. Among them:

• Alternate jerseys, featuring a St. Petersburg logo, that would be sold year-round.
• Placement of St. Petersburg signs within the ballpark.
• Input from city officials on the facility’s naming.
• Additional emphasis on the St. Petersburg stadium location during Rays game broadcasts.

No final decisions on the various branding proposals have been made, but city council member Ed Montanari said “there’s a lot of value to us to have the [St. Petersburg] name incorporated in some way. I’m looking for a lot more of that.” The Rays are pushing to obtain all needed government approvals for the new ballpark by March in order to preserve a planned spring 2028 opening.

Scrutiny Outside of St. Pete

St. Petersburg is not the only locale where public funding for pro sports facilities is drawing greater scrutiny. All politics are said to be local, and Oklahoma City overwhelmingly approved $850 million in public funds for a new Thunder arena. But in many parts of the country, there remains growing unrest surrounding the use of taxpayer funds for proposed stadium projects, including in cities such as Alexandria, Va., Kansas City, and Phoenix. 

“You’re trying to bring a project that’s supposed to improve the economic quality of this town, with revenue projections and economic studies that are basically garbage,” said former Alexandria council member Andrew Macdonald, who is part of a new coalition formed in opposition to the proposed $2 billion project to build a new arena and mixed-use development for the Washington Wizards and Capitals.