The NFL's $110-Billion Media Rights Deals

By: Elizabeth Warner and Anita Elberse

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Synopsis: On March 18, 2021, Brian Rolapp, chief media and business officer at the National Football League (NFL) presented the results of a months-long effort to renegotiate rights deals with the NFL's current partners in television-the media conglomerates behind the networks CBS, FOX, NBC, and ESPN-to a small committee of NFL team owners. Those agreements were worth a staggering $9 billion a year-a 75% increase over the current deals. The committee had swiftly accepted the new deals, clearing the way for the agreements to be submitted for formal approval by the full group of NFL team owners later in the month. But Rolapp and his team did not have time for a victory dance: they immediately focused their attention on the one remaining major package still to find a home: the NFL's Thursday Night games. Technology giant Amazon was a front-runner, having offered $1.2 billion a year. That figure would bring the total value of the NFL's media-rights deals to more than $110 billion over eleven years-by far the richest set of deals in the history of sports. Should the NFL finalize a first-ever deal of its kind with Amazon, for the Thursday Night rights?