Latest / Unicorn Football Talk / State of the NFL: Part 1

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State of the NFL: Part 1 · Unicorn Football Talk

• Emily: Hmm, I don't know. Back in those mid 2000 years, the Seahawks Stadium was known as one of the toughest stadiums to play in. So for me, the change is easy to see to go from the best craziest environment to a less crazy environment. I doubt every stadium had the vibe we had, but I assume that what we have in common is that over time less regular people can afford to go. Welcome to our very first episode of Unicorn Football Talk. I'm Emily and I have Hilary here with me. Hey Hilary. Hilary: Hey Emily, how's it going? Emily: Great. I can't believe we're here. We've been talking about doing this for a really long time. Hilary: I'm really excited to talk to you about football. Emily: Well, when we first ⁓ about doing a podcast, we came up with a long list of football topics. And for episode one, we settled on doing the first part of a three-part series about the state of the NFL. We will be covering topics like popularity, profitability, safety rules, and And that it has changed the experience in the stands. So I I don't know. What do you think? Hopefully we turn this into a yearly topic and check in and see how the NFL is progressing year over year. at the end, we'll be rating the NFL from the perspective of the owners, players, and the fans. Does that sound fun? Hilary: Sounds great. Can't wait. Let's do it. Emily: All right, let's get going. Today is all about popularity and profitability. So this will be a shock to no one listening, but the NFL is popular and it makes money. But I found topic to be much more interesting as I got under the hood. We'll start with popularity. How are we going to break this down? We can't cover everything, Hillary. There's so much to talk about, but I was thinking we would talk about four main categories game attendance, game TV viewership, interest in merch, and fan sentiment. There's probably way more things we could talk about, like non-game media interest, like in this podcast, but let's keep it simple. Hilary: Okay. Let's do it. Emily: All right, starting with game attendance. attendance has been strong over the years. it interesting to see though, not every NFL game sells ⁓ out, but on the NFL is close with estimates in the 95 plus percent range. There is an average about 550,000 ⁓ home attendance per. per team per year. It did go up in twenty twenty one when they added a seventeenth game. Hilary: Okay, that makes sense. Emily: Yeah, there was a dip, interestingly, about point eight percent last year. I don't know why, and but I don't know if it's a serious concern for the NFL. This'll be something for us to check in on next year. Hilary: Okay, but what about tickets? Emily: Well, yeah, so for some teams you can't get tickets without paying a ton. And some are easier. when we first ⁓ moved to Seattle you could just buy season tickets. There was no waiting list. So we gave in ⁓ and in two thousand five we got season tickets. And since that time you can't because we went to our first Super Bowl that year. Hilary: Right. Emily: I have no idea how long the wait list is. Hilary: I can tell you it's very long. I'm still there waiting. Emily: Are you on the wait list? Hilary: I am. It's been yes, it's been a while and we haven't made much progress. Emily: I did not know that. I'm sorry to hear that. Hilary: It's okay. Emily: All right. So for those of you that can't go to a game, you can watch on TV. So we're gonna talk about TV viewership. It continues to increase year over year. Hilary: So I wanna jump in here with something that I think is a little bit interesting about viewership, and that's how Nielsen ratings changed how they calculate viewership starting in 2025. prior to the twenty twenty-five season the method they used was they equipped home TV sets in tens of thousands of homes with tracking software to just document the TV watching history of that particular family on their TV set. ⁓ the industry estimates at that time was that they were gathering data from about 50,000 homes. So fast forward to this past year, and for the first time, they also collected data from cable, satellite, smart TV connections to the internet and that kind of stuff. They had contracts with Roku, Dish Network, Comcast, other partners And that allowed them to gather data from like 45 million households. And in addition to households, you know, people are streaming on their phones or tablets, things like that. So it's a total of about 75 million devices now that they're collecting the information from, which is obviously a massive increase over ⁓ the prior data points they had. ⁓ I think it gives them a way more accurate count of who's actually watching. And this year they also added in a factor for what they called out-of-home viewership. let's say you go to the sports bar or you're watching in an airport or a hotel or any place else like that that is broadcasting the games they're collecting that information too. So with all of that extra data, you would think that it would really bump the numbers. And the interest really interesting part is it didn't. There was about a five percent viewership increase based on those numbers, but in the big scheme of things, that's not really as big as I would have expected. a bigger bump on some strategically placed games specifically, but as an overall for the season, it was about a five percent increase with the adjusted data. Emily: That is really interesting. When you were telling me this, I was assuming the number would change drastically. I guess that means Nielsen was doing a good job, but it's Hilary: Right. Yeah, it I guess it leads us to think that that smaller statistic was actually still, you know, proportionally accurate. Emily: it will be interesting to see the numbers in future years but yeah, it was eighteen point seven ⁓ average for every game ⁓ compared to in twenty twenty five, compared to seventeen five million ⁓ the before. So yeah, ⁓ not a huge difference, but up. Like it the trend ⁓ up as ⁓ Hilary: Right, slow and steady growth. Emily: Yeah, steady growth. so just for curiosity, what were some of the big, big games last year? The Super Bowl ⁓ is obviously the biggest game. ⁓ And it was 125.6 million viewers. It actually a little bit during the halftime. The Chiefs Cowboys Thanksgiving game was the most watched regular season game in history. ⁓ At fifty seven. Fifty seven point two million. That's huge for a regular season game. Hilary: Really? That is huge and that's not unusual. The Cowboys always play on Thanksgiving, right? So it's not just that it's the Cowboys. Emily: Correct, they always do. And then the other Thanksgiving game, Packers Lions, was forty seven point seven. So also really big. but that is a holiday, so more people are home, and Thanksgiving is known for watching football. So the highest rated non holiday game was the Chiefs Eagles at thirty three point eight million. ⁓ So that's pretty Yeah, a lot of people watch. Hilary: Okay. Yeah, that's a lot of people. Emily: All right, we're gonna move on to the third of our fourth deep dives in popularity. We're gonna talk about merch a little bit. Are you ready? Hilary: Yeah, I'm ready. Emily: So more people are watching in person and on But what about merch? So I I don't know what you found. I didn't find a ton of data on that except revenue, guesses at revenue, ⁓ and it's going up. ⁓ But one of the I was curious about is the revenue going up because more people are buying more or ⁓ Is it because the cost of the thing is more? Everything I read suggested it was not just the cost. It appears more people are buying more with the Taylor Swift effect and the growth of the international markets. Hilary: Okay. But what about you personally? Are you buying more? I bought a lot of gear all kind of at one time a few years back. And as individual things wear out, I'm replacing them. Or, you know, in my case, the player gets traded and I don't really want to wear that jersey anymore, maybe. so replacing individual pieces, but I'm not necessarily like buying more and having a bigger volume of stuff. Price is a bit of a barrier, but also I just I guess I o I feel like I only need so many things. Emily: I have so much. I have so much already. I think I have seven jackets. Like do I need another jacket? No. But if I've come across something I think is really cute, I I buy it. I I I still buy stuff. I think it is interesting how jerseys buy. the for the special games where they do like the throwback. or the Action Green game, which I haven't seen in a while, which is great. ⁓ that people buy the jerseys for those special games. ⁓ Hilary: Right, right. They had those special ⁓ releases this year too. Each team rolled out a special jersey at some point during the season, ⁓ over multiple weeks, I think. Emily: Yeah, but for me, I'm only gonna buy it if I want the jersey. I'm not gonna buy it just so that I'm matching everybody at the game. Hilary: Okay. No action green for you. Emily: No, never. about you? Did you like the action green? Hilary: know, ⁓ do like it. I don't know that I can wear it, so I don't have one, but I it's kind of fun. in small doses. Not a fan when the Seahawks get there on the field with the whole green thing going. I think maybe they should pair that jersey with solid different colored pants or something, Emily: Agree, agree. All right, we're gonna move into our fourth topic in popularity, We're gonna talk about sentiment. I think this is what I was most excited to talk to you about today because as much as I love watching the NFL and obviously talking about it, I wouldn't start this podcast with you if I didn't love football and love talking about it. But my feelings about the NFL as a corporate entity is not. ⁓ Positive and can be really quite negative at times, as you'll find out as we chat more. I'm so annoyed with so many things that they do, but I do keep watching and spending. So I was just curious about others. And luckily I stumbled across a recent report from 2026 from American Customer Satisfaction Index. ⁓ And shared it with you. It was fascinating, wasn't it? Hilary: It was. I was really surprised when I saw some of the results of that survey. Emily: Yeah, so let's start with just what was the score. So they have a score, they rate industries on zero to one hundred. The NFL scored a sixty six Hilary: That doesn't sound good in the face of just the numbers, right? And then I dug a little deeper and it's really not good. That score finishes lower than like every other industry in the study. And that includes the internet service providers who got a 72, the postal service with a 72, and TV subscription services with a 70. So That's like D rating, you know. ⁓ you can't you can't top the postal service, I don't know. Emily: I admit I was surprised by how low the score was, even though I have a lot of those feelings, it does feel validating to me to see that other fans aren't feeling great. What what about you? ⁓ Hilary: Well, I I think the low score is disappointing, but it's not super surprising to me. I love the game, the players, the atmosphere, and it's a great product. But understand that, you know, there's some cost prohibitive nature to the game and there are other negative factors for people. And I also wonder if when people took the survey, if they really could differentiate between ⁓ satisfaction kind of like emotional connection, right? Are they not satisfied with the NFL because their team didn't make the playoffs? You know, were they able to separate that, okay, the NFL as a business entity is what we're asking the question about here. So I hear what you're saying. And I agree. I think the NFL as a business entity is ⁓ not well by its fans. ⁓ And we've some other categories we're gonna rate later, but The numbers the low numbers did surprise me. Emily: Well, since you mentioned connection to the team, look at a few more tidbits. Cause the first one I was gonna point out is specifically fans of playoff teams ⁓ versus fans that miss the and how much does that affect their satisfaction? And it ⁓ a big gap actually. So a thirteen point gap. Fans of playoff teams score 73 and fans whose team missed the playoffs score 60. So it does impact how they feel. I'll point out few more. Gen Z fans show lower satisfaction but higher engagement in betting and fantasy sports, ⁓ which ⁓ a topic that I'd love to chat with you about in the future. Men have a lower score to women at 65 to women's 68. then men are also more likely to say a loss ruins their day. 18%. ⁓ there's 11% ⁓ of and it's so sad, but I'm in that 11%, ⁓ Hillary. does ruin my day. ⁓ Hilary: Yes you are. Emily: My family just does not like it when my teams lose, because I am definitely affected. And then I'll just throw more and more out there. ⁓ sixty-three percent express confidence and consistency of officiating, which is really low. it's important to watch a game and feel like it's fair and the right things are being called Hilary: is low, yeah. Emily: or the wrong things are not being called, if that makes sense. so that was that was disappointing. I guess I'm not sure how I would have answered that. I'd have to think more about it. Hilary: Okay. Okay. I noticed too that despite the low satisfaction rating, engagement remains really high. About three quarters of fans watch most almost all of their favorite home team games. And and it doesn't really matter whether their teams made the playoffs or not. And you know, game attendance seems to drive satisfaction, and the merchandise purchases are more effective for teams that are successful. who attended two or more games had a score of like 70 and a willingness to buy more merchandise. So why aren't we turning it off? Will we ever turn it off? At what point? ⁓ Do we say, you know, this isn't good enough and I'm just gonna let it go? I I don't know what it's gonna take, but it's gonna take a lot for me to turn it off. Emily: I think about that question a lot. I am not even close to turning it off. But like there's just times where I'm not feeling good about it. Like the fact, which we'll talk about this in another one, like the fact that I had to buy Peacock to watch a playoff game. And I'm not in love as much ⁓ the NFL for. For many reasons. ⁓ just seems like the NFL doesn't care, which is also a little frustrating, but I haven't turned it off yet. And if we do this every year, we can be watching the ratings and the attendance and we'll find out, I guess. Hilary: Yeah, it'll be interesting to see if there's a trend over time. Emily: So far the trend has only been up. So we'll see. I don't feel like next year will be the year it'll go, but ⁓ super, super curious. before we moved on to profitability, this report was just too good. I I wanted to mine it for a few more tidbits before we move on. Streaming, significant forty six percent of fans think that there are ⁓ too many games on streaming. ⁓ Hilary: No, no. Emily: But that number jumps to 70% among fans 65 and older. High stress fan bases. the season was seen as a weekly nerve test for many. ⁓ With they they actually they called out one base with the most stress one with the most negativity. I was surprised by the high stress one. did you see that one? Hilary: Okay. I did not. I don't know. Who's the stress who's the stress tester each week? Emily: The Dallas Cowboys fans are the most stressed. I I don't I can't really make sense of that. Hilary: ⁓ Well, always be always big expectations down there, right? Emily: that's probably it. The big expectations. ⁓ last season they were so good on offense and not so much on defense. Maybe that maybe watching their leads go away was stressful. I don't know. The fans that experienced the highest negativity, I mean to me it was between two teams. ⁓ But Hilary: Okay. Emily: But it was the Jets. It was the Jets and that would have been one of the teams. Yeah. Hilary: It was the Jets. Okay. All right. I would I would have called out Cleveland or ⁓ maybe Carolina, but okay. Emily: Yeah, Cleveland was the other one. If I had to guess, I would have guessed Cleveland. ⁓ two more I'll just call out and then see if you wanna wrap up. ⁓ stadium experiences remain highly rated with 70% of fans rating their venue. Experiences excellent or good. I mean, most of the stadiums are newish ⁓ or that old so I mean the NFL does Keep stadiums current. ⁓ a whole other topic. and then and travel. They rated the fans that were the most dedicated travelers. ⁓ And this surprised me. Did you see one? Hilary: I did see that one. I was surprised. But prior to seeing the ant the answer from the report, I would have been all in saying it was the Steelers fans that traveled the most because those terrible towels are everywhere. And if you just think about where they're based geographically, a lot of their quote, away games ⁓ not that far to make the drive to, you know, go as an away fan and that kind of stuff. So I've always thought they traveled great. Emily: Yeah, they called out the Las Vegas Raiders. I think the Raiders are pretty popular in a lot of places. I know they traveled well, ⁓ especially because they had the number one pick last year. So I'm not sure where that dedication was coming from. but the the two teams that followed them, the 49ers and our Seahawks, and if you think about where we are geographically, it's pretty impressive. Hilary: Yeah, we got a long way to go most years. Emily: Okay, anything else before we move on? Hilary: ⁓ you know, just one more thing that I want to call out that I think is a super positive when we're talking about popularity and sentiment is that there's been a surge in female fan interest. And I just love to know that there's a lot of women out there who are taking an interest in the game. ⁓ they say that no almost forty nine, fifty percent of fans identify now as female, and that's a super strong upward trend. And it's ⁓ especially a young. among young women where the increases were between like twenty twenty three over the prior year up about 10 percentage points. So that's great. ⁓ and I hope that continues to grow. Emily: That is a shocking difference, from one year to another. Thirty seven percent to forty like wow. ⁓ Hilary: Yeah. That's a big jump Emily: Love to see it. All right. we wrapped up ⁓ popularity. we're going talk about the second part, which is profitability. We discussed that the NFL is popular despite how people feel about it. ⁓ and not to spoil the whole second part of our podcast, but the NFL is doing well financially. I don't think anyone would be surprised to hear that. ⁓ the NFL commissioner Roger publicly way back in 2010 ⁓ that the NFL had a goal hit 25 billion in revenue by 2027. ⁓ At the time they were about billion. And ⁓ they're almost there, Hillary. Latest estimates them at 23 billion. So Hilary: Wow. Emily: That was a big audacious goal. And looks like they're on track. The media rights deal is one of the biggest reasons they're getting there, which we'll we'll talk about in a little bit. ⁓ I think the other thing, just a few more things to point out before we get into it. ⁓ The does not officially report out its league-wide revenue to the public, but the numbers are exposed via the financial disclosures of the Green Bay Packers. Because they are the only publicly owned team, which is really cool. Hilary: Yeah, that's a super cool setup and I love that they're giving us a little window into the financial disclosures. That's that's that's cool too. Emily: Yeah, we're lucky. All right. what is the model, financial model? Well, so there it is a revenue sharing system, but they don't share all revenue. About 70 to 80 percent of the revenue that's shared comes from the league negotiated media deals, ⁓ the league sponsored, ⁓ and is mostly pooled some And then team gets to keep their own ticket revenue, local sponsorships, and then there's some like stadium event income. And that's makes up to about twenty to thirty percent of their revenue. Hilary: Okay. Okay. I wanna call out, like you said before too, that exact numbers are hard to come by. So when we talk about numbers in the next segment, we're talking about ballpark numbers, right? Emily: Yep. We did our best to get the best numbers we could. but I think we're in the range. so we are gonna break this category down to four subcategories as well. ⁓ We're not gonna cover ⁓ everything. We're gonna cover media merch, sponsorships, and then ticket, game day Hilary: Okay. Emily: Media. This is the biggest chunk of revenue is the national TV deals. The NFL is currently in an eleven-year media rights deal valued at $110 billion with many networks like Fox, CBS, NBC, ESPN, ABC, and Amazon. last year, I don't know if last year was the first year, there was a game on Netflix, but they don't have a deal specifically with Netflix. The NFL leaves some games as unallocated every year that they can adapt to the changing landscape. So that's why they can throw in a a Netflix game here or there. all right. So ⁓ I just really quick, to show ⁓ how ⁓ the growth has been. ⁓ The early the earned about 1.1 billion a And then that with the next media deal in the late 90s, early 2000s, it went it doubled to 2.2 billion a year. Late 2000s to the early 2010s, it went up to 3 billion. Late twenty tens to twenty twenty one, five point three billion, and now in our current deal, which runs through twenty thirty three, over ten billion per year. Hilary: Okay, and they're already talking about they don't think that that's a good enough number and they wanna start renegotiating. Is that right? Emily: Yeah, they want more. They want more. there is an opt out clause in twenty nine, ⁓ except for Disney ESPN has till twenty thirty. And yes, the NFL stated publicly that they would like to start renegotiating, likely we'll see that happen next year. Hilary: Wow. Okay. So all that money in there just not still not happy. Emily: Not enough, Hillary. They want more. Hilary: Okay. Okay. I want to just jump in here for a second and put this media deal in context with other sports leagues because we're stating that the ⁓ media deal as a source of revenue represents about 62% for the NFL of their revenue. The next, even remotely closest, is for the NBA and it's 40%. Major League Baseball is 25% of their revenue. The National Hockey League is twenty percent and major league soccer is down at fifteen percent. So the NFL numbers are staggering in the portion of their revenue that it represents. ⁓ It it's just massive. Emily: Yeah. And so why is that? Why do broadcasters pay so much and much more every time the deal is negotiated? A couple of reasons to highlight one, you have the rare live audience. Now, I mean, I know all sports are live, but sports are live, but ⁓ already talked about how many people they pull in for a live audience and it's huge. Hilary: Right. All sports are live. Emily: I think football, because I don't watch a ton of other sports. I think football is really the only thing I watch live anymore. And in twenty twenty five, the NFL captured eighty-three of the top one hundred slots. And football in general. So college football grabbed a few more, which we could talk about another time. But that's a lot that's eighty-three out of a hundred slots is live ⁓ audience that they can milk for more money. And then because of that, with more networks and more streaming entering the market, there's more and more bidding wars. So they're just pitting broadcasters against each other. Hilary: right Emily: So, just out of curiosity, before we move on, I was just looking at the price of a Super Bowl ad just to how much it's gone up over the years. ⁓ in two thousand the average was two point two million. ⁓ The last Super Bowl was eight million for ad. That's ⁓ Hilary: Okay. And they're what th a minute, thirty seconds? I mean, they're really short, right? Emily: Okay, I should have looked that up. I'm gonna guess that's for thirty It's lot. you can just see at least just compare for the growth. it's two point two to eight million is a lot. Hilary: Yeah, it's a lot. Emily: Okay. All right. We're just more and more. Let's talk about merch. Again, I know we talked about merch. We discussed that more people are buying and revenue is up year over year. mentioned earlier I couldn't personally get a reliable source, so I wasn't gonna say numbers unless you think you've got good numbers. it but it is widely reported that it's been up year over year. I did learn a couple of things while researching that I didn't know ⁓ that I were interesting and just wanted to share. there's something called a 75 mile rule. if you buy merch within 75 miles of the stadium, the teams get to keep all of the profit. So when we go to the game, the pro shop or the pro shop in Renton and we buy something, the Seahawks get to keep all of that. So I didn't know that. I don't know if you knew it. Hilary: I didn't know that either. No, makes me want to go to the pro shop instead of buying it from NFL dot com. Emily: Same. Or even the pro shop online is shared. So I don't want to share my jersey sale with the Browns. Hilary: ⁓ Okay, do it in person. Support your team locally. That's the takeaway there. Emily: That's the takeaway there. And then Dallas Cowboys, they they have to be special. were generating ⁓ a disproportionate of revenue. ⁓ So they the league. ⁓ And in end, they get to opt out of the revenue sharing for merch, but it's not for free. They have to contribute about 16% ⁓ of the pool. To the league. So basically they pay a fee and they get to keep everything above it and it's paid off incredibly for them. Hilary: So they're just betting that every year they generate more revenue individually than the team average. Emily: Yes, and they have been succeeding. I don't know how they do it. I honestly I don't know why so many people buy Dallas merch, but Good for them. Hilary: Yeah, and you know, that's kind of interesting too, if Dallas has been successful in betting on themselves, why haven't other teams tried to get that same kind of revenue? with the league instead of just getting the pooled average? Emily: I don't know I don't I don't know. Hilary: Are you thinking there's not another team that would want to bet that they would generate enough to take that gamble? Emily: I don't think there is another team, but that would be interesting to look at. I wonder if we could find a breakdown the next highest ⁓ Hilary: Okay. Well, there's no doubt people are buying merchandise. the NFL and the individual teams have been running great marketing campaigns, TV ads, it's all over ⁓ you know social media and that kind of stuff during this season. and I do want to just take a second here to talk about how the NFL categorizes merchandise. Because I think automatically of like a jersey ⁓ ⁓ ball cap or something like that. But merchandise is everything. It's bobbleheads, it's tailgating equipment. It's anything that has that NFL license logo for either the player or the team or the NFL itself. ⁓ it also includes trading cards and collectibles and stuff like that, which is a whole other big, you know, kind of side segment for some people. So I got my numbers from the NFL Players Association website, and they actually track the statistics by team and by individual player total merchandise sales generated. ⁓ And the numbers March 1st, 2025 to February 28th, 2026. So that is this past season. it was a two billion dollar business merchandise. And they estimate that about 48% of fans purchase something yearly. Jerseys, hoodies, clothing is one of the major categories. But guess what the fastest growing segment of merchandise is? Emily: I have no idea. Kitchenware? I don't know. Hilary: Yeah. Footwear. Shoes. Emily: ⁓ you were before your time, Hillary, 'cause you had shoes like ten years ago. ⁓ Hilary: I know I love my shoes. I love my Seahawks logoed shoes. But yeah, footwear is a big growing part of that. so this year, ⁓ the top five for total merchandise sales, again, collectors, cards, jerseys, ⁓ everything. it's mainly apparel the but it includes everything. The number one this year is Josh Allen, followed by Drake May, Saquon Barkley. Jackson Smith Njigba and Jaden Daniels. So a little bit of a shake up from the year before when there were some Eagles players in the top five, of course, because they won the Super Bowl the year before. But it's an it's a cool list. You can look it up. They list the top fifty. and then the top ten teams at the very top again this year is the Cowboys, the Eagles, the Forty Niners, and the Bears. Emily: Okay, I don't think any of those players were surprising. I guess I guess though Patrick Mahomes not being on there, it's like I guess everybody that wants one has a jersey already. Hilary: No, not to me. Well, I think he's number seven and I only named the top five. So little stat on him. He's been in the top ten for the last eight consecutive years, I think it is now. So he's definitely a popular player. Emily: Yeah, and I it's nice seeing Jaden Daniel in there. he's a young, exciting, up and coming player. all right, cool. That was interesting. Anything else before we move on? Hilary: I don't think so. Emily: Right, we're gonna touch briefly on league sponsorship. it's up. ⁓ The NFL just prints money. It's up to two point seven billion in twenty twenty five, up from two point four nine billion in twenty twenty four, and up again from the previous year and the year before that. Hilary: Right. And you know, there's multiple layers of sponsorship in the NFL. There are direct player sponsorships, there are individual team sponsorships. Maybe that's who's sponsoring your stadium or your your local market sponsors. and then there's the overarching major sponsors for the NFL League as a whole. And I discovered too that you can even, if you want to be a sponsor for a particular event, for example. ⁓ Bud Light was the sponsor of this year's draft and again, I got my stats from the NFL Players Association website. there's more than 75 official league-wide sponsorships for 2026. some of the major corporations are American Express, which is a little bit of a change. It was Visa for a long time. Verizon, Toyota, Fritole into it. ⁓ AWS Amazon, and then perhaps again another topic for another podcast, another major sponsor this year is the DraftKings and FanDuel sports betting sites. Emily: I had no idea there were seventy-five. And I like I'm sure that there are different levels and all of that, but still seventy-five's a lot. No wonder they're pulling in so much money. Hilary: Yeah, you can have your official NFL sandwich, your NFL home improvement store, your NFL financial services. The list is pretty extent yeah, the list is pretty extensive. Emily: Amazing. Okay, well, this is ⁓ our last main topic in profitability. Ticket sales. This is something I'm very excited and passionate to talk about. ⁓ one ⁓ as we mentioned before, ⁓ team specific. So the Seahawks keeps their ticket revenue. Every team keeps their own revenue. teams received about million last year from revenue sharing. ⁓ but then the tickets are on top of that. So talked about how stadiums are full and how they make more money over time? Besides building new stadiums, ⁓ they raise prices. It is very expensive to go to a game. ⁓ And ⁓ was of surprised to see how fast it had been climbing, ⁓ even though I have seasoned tickets and I know we're paying more year over year. I don't think I've really noticed over time how much. So the stats that I looked at was from ⁓ the site ⁓ and ticket price has doubled since two thousand six. The average is a hundred and twenty dollars, ⁓ but I'd surprised if you could actually get a ticket for a hundred and twenty dollars anywhere. Hilary: I was gonna say where I wanna go. Where do where do I get a ticket for a hundred and twenty bucks? Because you know, based on that statistics that you pulled up, the average for all teams for a family of four to go to a game is in the thirteen hundred dollar range. the Eagles, it's a lot more than that. They came in at twenty one hundred roughly, and the Lowest, I think, on that list was the Jets for a family of four. It was five hundred and fifty bucks to go to a game and that's tickets, parking, maybe a hot dog, ⁓ whatever. But that's still that that's a hefty price to pay for some entertainment with your family. Emily: It's too much. It really is. I mean, twenty one hundred thirty-three dollars for the Eagles fan cost index. I mean, what family of four, average family of four can afford that? I just I hate to see it. I got an email from the Seahawks like a week ago, ⁓ and they're really excited to exclaim that they have value tickets available nosebleed 300 level end zone starting as low as $130. ⁓ Hilary: Is that the one behind the pole with the extracted view? Emily: Yeah. But like but they were like excited to explain that they had these value tickets for a hundred when did $130, first of all, become cheap? And second, I actually went in just to see. I couldn't find any of those tickets for $130. I just don't know when it became ⁓ when it blew up like that and why it's okay. ⁓ it ⁓ that they can just keep doing it. And I wanna comment too, as a 20 year season ticket the vibe ⁓ In the stadium, at least at the Seahawks. I can't talk about other stadiums. It has changed since I started going in 2005. When first started going, my section was filled with the same fans every single week. And they never sold their tickets. And now, totally different vibe. People can't afford. To buy an entire season worth of tickets and they try to sell some of them to offset the cost, which I don't blame them for. I just wish that they would find Seahawks fans to sell it to because now I go to the stadium and my biggest stress is how many fans will there be from the other team? and it's just not the same loud, fun, crazy vibe. I mean, I think people will go and they'll say, ⁓ this the stadium is so loud. It isn't as loud as it used to be. It's just not the same. So I still have fun and I'm not giving up my tickets, but I am paying more and I'm not having the same quality of an experience. Hilary: Do you think that's unique to our market or do you think that is happening nationwide in all the different stadiums? You think that's just a current trend as the ticket prices increase for everybody? Well, I think it's probably changing in a lot of stadiums. I think there's more corporate sponsorships where they buy the tickets for the season and then the tickets just become giveaway perks to vendors or employee rewards or things like that. So you don't have the same people in that set of seats week after week and there's not that same intensity of passion for the game, perhaps when you didn't have to pay for the ticket, you know? Emily: Yeah, the seats behind me are corporate and I'd say fifty percent or more of the time, they're people sitting back there and just chit chatting. They're not even watching the game. Hilary: Okay. I hear ya. Emily: So it's just sad. It's just sad for me to see that that that's happening because it's the best part about going to the game is seeing the same people week over week. okay. Well, that was depressing. ⁓ just had a few other takeaways before we wrap up. operating income. So we talked that they make a lot of money. And because of revenue sharing, there's really a very high floor for every team to make money. But it was really interesting to me, again, from the statista site, to see that there is a really big disparity among each team and operating income. And the numbers I have are from 2024. The average for all 32 teams was about 127 million, which is, netting out ⁓ their profit. I guess I thought yeah, I thought it would be more too. but what was really interesting is to see look at the highest and the lowest. So Dallas, as you would expect, was the highest ⁓ at 629 million in operating income that year. ⁓ Hilary: That doesn't sound like very much. Emily: And that blows away everybody. the second most was Rams at two hundred and forty four. ⁓ But then the bottom the list, I don't know if you saw who was at the bottom. It's a really low number. Hilary: I did not see who's at the bottom. Emily: The Lions at 21 million. ⁓ I thought, yeah, I thought that was interesting because when we were looking at the fan cost index, ⁓ the Lions ranked ⁓ highest average cost at like two thousand for a game. So where are they falling On merch or I I don't know. Just interesting to me. Twenty one million's not a lot. Hilary: Really? Well maybe they have a really small stadium and they don't have as many seats to sell as some of the, you know, bigger, newer venues Emily: Could be. I should have looked that up. Hilary: Next time. Emily: Next time. Stay tuned. Okay. And then one more point. profitability ⁓ does benefit the players. the cap ⁓ has been going up every year because it is tied to revenue. So that's the good news, is that players, the people we love to watch and sacrifice their bodies for us, do get a chunk of this. So they get about forty eight percent of the revenue. Hilary: Okay. So what I think I hear you saying is that forty-eight percent of the revenue goes to pay for player salary, right? But I'm gonna jump in with a few thoughts on this. just like you got a little salty about the ticket prices and who was sitting around you, I get a little agitated, I guess, ⁓ at the numbers ⁓ and the of the distribution between players. And there's no doubt that players' salaries are going up with the increase in the cap and that as new contracts come up, players are rewarded, especially premier players, are rewarded with their new contracts. Right. And, you know, boy, we could do a whole episode just on the salary cap because ⁓ got a lot of learning to do there before I speak eloquently or educated on that. But I just don't think there's an equitable benefit of the distribution of the revenue. And one of the reasons that I say that is because the average NFL career is less than four years. So there's a vast majority of players who never make it off of the rookie playing salary to reap the benefits of that contract and the the revenue from the salary cap ⁓ right? And the next thing is is that the average is four years. There, there, of course, are some positions that play longer than that on average punters, kickers, quarterbacks, things like that. but the revenue and the salary is also really widely distributed depending on the position you play. And interestingly, draft order comes into that too. And so I want to give an example because I love the position of kicker. I'm fascinated by everything that goes into that. And so my example is Brandon Aubrey of the Dallas Cowboys. ⁓ he's number five on the all-time accuracy list. He makes in the neighborhood of 88, 89% ⁓ of attempted kicks. He has a huge impact on games. He's a premier athlete. And this spring he signed a massive deal that reset the bar for salaries for kickers and he signed a four year twenty eight million dollar contract with twenty million guaranteed. Great. Sounds awesome, right? Well, fun fact the way the draft works now the newest players drafted for the 2026 year are slotted into the number one draft pick makes a certain amount of money. The number two makes a certain amount of money over their rookie contracts, right? The top ten picks from this year's draft will make more on their four year rookie contracts than Brandon Aubrey will. And that just seems I don't it just seems a little weird to me, you know? And I don't know what the solution is, but I just seems like there's for all the money out there, seems like there could be ⁓ more equitable distribution ⁓ of salaries. Emily: Wow. Yeah, I don't know what the solution is either. will say that the way they do it now is, in my opinion, better than how they used to do it. So now they're slotted. You you make what you you make. ⁓ for when you're for the draft. Yes. For the draft. ⁓ it used to be that they would be like, You you drafted me number one, now we're gonna negotiate price. And I kind of had a problem with that because I'm like, You guys, you haven't proved anything yet. ⁓ first Hilary: For the draft for the draft picks, right? Yeah. Okay. Emily: Prove that you can do something and then you can you can get that second contract. But I mean, I also think though, to your point about the four years, that means a lot of people are not getting that second contract. Hilary: Correct. So draft pick number two fifty, right? or Mr. Irrelevant, you know, ⁓ it work unless you're Brock Purdy. Doesn't work out for most players like it out for him. they're not making a significant amount of money on that rookie contract. Emily: Unless you're Brock Purdy. Well, that feels like a fun topic for to do a episode on. So that brings us to the conclusion of our very first episode. we ⁓ are gonna the state of the NFL. I mentioned this at the beginning. We're gonna rate from three perspectives: the owners slash ⁓ NFL entity players and fans. I will that the fan perspective is our perspective. So it may not align with. Hilary: Illusion. First Emily: most fans, I have no idea, but we get to do whatever we want because this is our podcast. I'm proposing a green, yellow, red rating. Seems pretty straightforward. Green, green's like either trending in the right direction or you're meeting the goals that you set out. ⁓ Not that as fans we out goals, red on the other side is things are going in the Hilary: Okay. Emily: wrong direction or like from the NFL perspective if they were making half of what they had planned or whatever. And then yellow is just somewhere in between. It's like a caution. I'm not sure I like where this is headed, but I don't know if it's green or red. That makes sense. Hilary: Yeah, yeah, I'm on board for that. Emily: Okay. I feel like the first one is easy. The NFL and owners, I'm gonna say is green. Are you gonna debate me on that? Hilary: Nope, nope, that's green. Yep. They are making their money and they are happy. There's always more, but yeah, I think they're happy with the way things are trending. Emily: Okay, on the player side, I'm gonna say green, but I don't know after listening to you talk about player salary whether you would deviate from that. Hilary: is there like lime green headed towards yellow? I'm gonna call it green for now, but I'm watching it and I just think it's something to keep in mind that where the NFL overall is just generating massive revenue, it doesn't trickle down to everybody. Emily: Yeah, that's true. But the NFL's popular and that's good for the players. And the NFL's making money, so it's good for the players. So I feel good about green rating. Fans, this is where I'm not gonna say green. is again my perspective. I talked about the game experience and how it's degraded over the years. ⁓ We'll talk a bit more in future episodes, about the the more, more, more growth part of the NFL and how I feel like that's affecting it. it's yellow or red for me. What about you? ⁓ Hilary: it's a solid yellow for me. ⁓ I am really disheartened by the price to go to a game. And then I'm like, okay, I can't afford to go to the game. I'm just gonna watch it on TV. But ⁓ even that is proving kind of challenging unless you have multiple cable or multiple streaming services, ⁓ or you're gonna out every time to watch because you can't just go. you know, turn on the TV and catch all the games. Sometimes you can't even catch your local in market game unless you've got the appropriate streaming platform. So ⁓ that's a cautionary yellow to me. Emily: Yeah, I think yellow too. I was listening to you talk and I still watch and enjoy watching games. So I really can't say red, but I just wanted to like get my little dig in there. ⁓ anyway. Hilary: Even if it's red, would you turn it off? I don't know, I still might not turn it off. Emily: ⁓ Yeah. I I don't know. I guess red would mean I'm watching less and I'm not watching less. So it can't be red. It's yellow. Hilary: Okay. Well, I think we've done a great job with first episode. Emily, it was so awesome to do this with you. I'm excited for our next episode. Emily: Yeah, thanks, Hillary. This is gonna be a fun journey for us ⁓ glad to be here with you. See you next time. Hilary: See you next time on Unicorn Football Talk.