TV MONEY GIVES NFL AN ADVANTAGE OVER OTHERS
DALLAS » Timing favored the NFL over other major pro sports leagues in trying to figure out how to keep the coronavirus pandemic from wrecking the 2020 season.
America’s most popular sport has another big advantage if the games are played: TV money.
While NFL owners could lose billions collectively with limited capacities in stadiums or no fans at all, the league is wellpositioned financially because of lucrative media contracts approaching $10 billion in a full 2020 season.
And so far, the NFL is on pace to play games this fall.
“The NFL takes its position as America’s sport, the nation’s sport, very seriously,” said Marc Ganis, co-founder of the Chicago-based consulting group Sportscorp and close observer of the pro sports business scene. “They will move heaven and earth, make whatever adjustments are necessary. As long as players and coaches are healthy, they will get the games on.”
Ganis says there are plenty of options within that premise: no fans, some fans, perhaps even full stadiums by season’s end, or teams playing somewhere other than their regular venues because of restrictions related to the pandemic.
Regardless, the financial health of the NFL isn’t among the questions, at least for now, while other leagues grapple with issues over fan-related dollars that more profoundly affect their ability to operate.
Fitch Ratings recently affirmed its “A-plus” credit mark for the NFL and its properties while noting that the league had approved raising the borrowing limit for each club to $500 million from $350 million. While Fitch analyst Chad Lewis said the debt limit had more to do with larger capital spending, such as stadiums and practice facilities, the company attributes part of its strong rating to the television deals. Fitch says the NFL estimates each team’s media revenue at $250 million per season. The number gets bigger later in the contract, and each deal is set to expire in the next two years.
So it’s safe to say more than half of the league’s $15 billion in annual revenue comes from the TV deals shared equally among all 32 teams — unlike Major League Baseball, the NBA and NHL.
“If you just look at the number of eyeballs that the NFL gets on an average regular-season game,” Lewis said, “there’s just a very strong foundation there. That’s just really a testament to the strength of the league and how it looks for the league long term.”
Ganis estimates each team’s average of stadium-related revenue — tickets, parking, concessions, sponsorships and merchandise among other things — at $130 million annually. The