NFL Teams Eye Billion-Dollar Homes, but There’s Plenty of Pushback

The NFL is a television-driven league, with the largest individual chunk of its revenue deriving from domestic media deals generating roughly $12 billion annually. But the league’s in-person presence is taking on a new level of prominence as a growing group of teams push for new or renovated facilities.

New stadiums are under construction in Tennessee and Buffalo, funding deals were approved this past offseason in Jacksonville and Charlotte, and a three-year renovation plan recently began in Baltimore. But at least four other NFL teams are pushing to solidify their own venue futures, marking one of the largest collections of unsettled situations in this area in the last generation. Among the current issues:

• Chicago: A proposed $4.7 billion lakefront stadium is already facing significant pushback, including from Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker. Further progress before 2025 is unlikely as Pritzker said it would be “near impossible” for the team to get an agreement through the state legislature this fall.
• Cleveland: After weighing options between renovating the current downtown stadium and building a new $2.4 billion domed stadium near the airport, the Browns recently chose the latter. Like in Chicago, resistance to the plan has mounted quickly. But the team received a recent boost in a 20-year stadium naming rights deal with Huntington Bank that will carry over to a new facility, should one be built. 
• Kansas City: The two-time defending Super Bowl champions are in a highly enviable position, with local affinity for the team extremely strong and political leaders in both Missouri and Kansas jockeying to be the team’s long-term home. Chiefs owner Clark Hunt says he wants to take until January 2025 to evaluate stadium options before making a decision.
• Washington: The Commanders are looking at 2030 as the earliest date to build a new stadium, with the site of the team’s prior home, RFK Stadium, a potential option along with rival overtures from Maryland and Virginia. The team’s push to build a new venue has already been a years-long slog, but the Commanders and owner Josh Harris have the unique element of two states and the District of Columbia competing against each other.  

“We’re working super hard. I mean it’s taking up a lot of my own mind space to find our next home,” Harris said recently regarding the Commanders’ stadium site search. “We have conversations going with multiple jurisdictions. … As you peel the onion, things get more and more detailed, more and more advanced.”