Sportsnaut
The National Football League made $23 billion in revenue across the 2024 season, representing another record-setting year for the league. However, with the salary cap increasing and the salaries for the highest-paid NFL players following suit, it appears NFL owners aren’t happy with how much they have to spend now.
Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk highlighted made by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell this past week regarding the current Collective Bargaining Agreement and talks for a new CBA. While the current CBA doesn’t expire until 2030, it appears NFL owners have expressed frustration to Goodell regarding how much money they now have to spend on their teams.
“The second is just the rising cost, the cost of stadiums, the cost to facilities, the cost of operation, the cost of investment, and how dramatically that’s impacting the ownership view. So, I think both of those will form what I would call our priorities. Going into any negotiation whenever that occurs. So that was the extent of our discussion today. [the] 18-and-two [season format] did not even come up.”
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell on addressing NFL owners concerns of rising operation costs
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Under the current CBA, NFL players receive 48 percent of the league’s revenue. That would be just over $11 billion from last year’s revenue, with that money distributed across players across 53-man rosters for all 32 NFL teams.
Goodell also stated that owners want to revisit the salary cap system itself, examining how it’s working and whether or not there are ways to slow down the rising salaries for players. The commissioner’s comments certainly suggest his bosses, the team owners, aren’t pleased with the share of revenue players receive.
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However, that doesn’t seem to be the only source of frustration for NFL owners. They also aren’t happy with the rising operating costs, including what it costs to upgrade old stadiums or even build new ones. Even at a time when billionaire owners are increasingly threatening to relocate franchises if cities don’t use taxpayer money to cover a significant portion of stadium costs, there seems to be a belief that they are being asked to pay too much to run an NFL franchise.
All of this comes at a time when NFL owners are also pushing hard for the league to move to an 18-game schedule, which would be worth several billion dollars in added revenue from TV deals. There is also a desire to expand internationally, eventually pushing for an international franchise years from now, which would generate even more money for the league.
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The NFL salary cap has increased by 130 percent since 2011, but that is a direct reflection of the league’s annual record-setting revenue. While owning an NFL franchise is more profitable than ever, as demonstrated by the Washington Commanders selling for $6.05 billion in 2023, team owners seem to want their profit to be even higher at the direct...
