As with every year, business was booming for the world’s most popular and prosperous sports league. There are so many items to choose from, but here is my list of the NFL’s top 10 business of football stories of 2024.
Welcome private equity
The NFL was the last of the major sports leagues to allow private equity investment into its teams. Always wanting to hold fast to their model of individual ownership, league officials were slow to let go of that framework, until Josh Harris, owner of the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers and the NHL’s New Jersey Devils, had a difficult time mustering up investors to help fund a $6 billion purchase of the Washington Commanders. The realization was clear: Institutional money was needed.
As always, the NFL did it its own way. While other leagues allow up to 30% investment from private equity, the NFL set a 10% limit with a handful of pre-approved funds. Baby steps.
Two teams, the Buffalo Bills and Miami Dolphins, have taken advantage of the new rules, both selling the maximum allowable 10% to investment firms Arctos and Ares, respectively, liquidating hundreds of millions.
There will still be individual owners representing NFL teams, but the funding behind them may look quite different going forward.
Tom Brady the owner … and broadcaster
NFL ownership finally approved the transfer of a 5% stake in the Las Vegas Raiders to Brady after initially disapproving of what was an overly discounted valuation. While Brady is now an official minority owner of the struggling team, he has a $37.5 million side gig broadcasting games every week for FOX.
That job has been compromised due to guardrails placed on him by fellow owners. Brady cannot attend production meetings with players and coaches nor visit team facilities in preparation for the broadcasts. As I have said, it all seems kind of silly to me.
Of course, Brady is briefed on those production meetings by his FOX colleagues, and of course, he talks to coaches, players and general managers about their teams. I know that, you know that, FOX knows that and the NFL knows that. But the NFL wants the charade of barriers between Brady and the inner workings of the teams he covers, barriers that—unless he “cheats”—lessens the value of his commentary that FOX is paying him $2 million per week to provide.
Welcome Netflix; Christmas takeover
When the NFL negotiated new media deals a couple of years ago, CBS, NBC, FOX, ESPN, and now Amazon paid the extraordinary cumulative sum of $110 billion over 11 years. But the NFL wasn’t done selling inventory. They then carved out some one-offs, including a playoff game to Peacock, Black Friday games, and, of course, Christmas games. The latest of those games was sold to Netflix, as the NFL allowed the digital giant to whet its appetite for the league for the relative pittance of $150 million. The NFL knows no bounds in generating media revenue.
Last week’s Christmas games, while mostly noncompetitive, drew massive viewership at roughly 24 million per game. Christmas had been the traditional broadcast province of the NBA, which had five competitive and exciting games this Christmas and by NBA standards, did very well ratings-wise. But as it does to every potential competitor that dares to program counter to the league, NBA ratings were dwarfed by those of the NFL.
It is hard to see any sports product ever being competitive with the NFL. Speaking of the NFL winning the broadcast game …
Sunday Ticket lawsuit threat averted
On June 27 a jury in Los Angeles awarded a $4.7 billion judgment to residential and commercial subscribers, as the jury agreed with the plaintiffs that the NFL violated antitrust laws in distributing its out-of-market Sunday afternoon games through Sunday Ticket on DirecTV (now on YouTube). As per antitrust law, that verdict would have been trebled to equal a damages award of over $14.1 billion against the league, forcing many to wonder about the NFL’s ability to pay such a damages award, whether the salary cap would be affected, how ticket prices would be impacted, etc. Those worries were all for naught.
The judge overseeing the case, Philip Gutierrez saved the NFL and overturned the verdict, ruling that the testimony of the expert witnesses that calculated the damages was flawed and should have been excluded. And instead of merely reducing the award, Gutierrez simply threw it out. The plaintiffs will appeal to the Ninth Circuit, but that will take years.
Threat averted, Sunday Ticket intact, carry on. The dominance of NFL media continues.
The running back revolution
Running backs are disadvantaged coming into the NFL—with the three-year draft eligibility requirement—and disadvantaged going out of the NFL, with teams hesitant to reward veterans knowing younger and cheaper backs can easily be found.
The New York Giants, Raiders, Tennessee Titans and Cincinnati Bengals all decided to use their resources elsewhere rather than continue to pay a high rate for Saquon Barkley, Josh Jacobs, Derrick Henry and Joe Mixon, respectively. And the Philadelphia Eagles, Green Bay Packers, Baltimore Ravens and Houston Texans—all playoff teams—have been the beneficiaries. These discarded running backs have been revelations, energizing and improving offenses and taking on leadership roles.
While an increasing number of wide receivers are making $25 million or more, the signing of these running backs in the $9 million to $13 million range has not only proved a bargain, but a smart leveraging of an inefficiency in the market.
The best running backs in the game can be had for half the price of a decent wide receiver.
New York, New York … Oy.
Two teams in the nation’s largest market are some of the weakest links in the chain.
With a healthy Aaron Rodgers, an offseason trade for Haason Redick and an in-season trade for Davante Adams, the New York Jets and their fans had high hopes (again). So much for that. The head coach and general manager have been fired, Rodgers’s future is murky and more media leaks are coming out of this team than, well a sinking ship.
The Giants, for some mysterious reason, let the world see the offseason comments of owner John Mara addressing his front office on Hard Knocks. Mara said: “I’d have a tough time sleeping if Saquon [Barkley] goes to Philadelphia.” Oof. They now have the worst record in the league, released Daniel Jones after paying him $82 million over two seasons and have banners flying over games imploring Mara to completely reboot the team.
While having awful teams in the biggest market would be a business nightmare for some leagues, the NFL easily overcomes it. Small markets such as Buffalo, Green Bay and Kansas City garner massive viewership and loyal and expansive followings. The NFL can survive and thrive without success from its New York teams.
Kirk Cousins adding to Business Hall of Fame legacy
Captain Kirk did it again. Although he will never be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, he was in my inaugural class in the Business of Football Hall of Fame, and cemented that status this year.
Cousins signed the most lucrative contract in the 2024 free agent class, with $62.5 million paid this year and, whether with the Atlanta Falcons or a different team, $27.5 million next year. Now replaced by rookie Michael Penix Jr., he may have started his last game for the Falcons, bringing his tally with them to 14 games and $90 million—an average of $6.43 million per game.
As for his career earnings, through next year he will have made, in 14 seasons, $325 million.
Clearly, a first ballot Business of Football Hall of Famer.
Cowboys wait, but pay
After last year’s flameout against the Packers in the playoffs, I thought the Dallas Cowboys would let the contracts of stars such as Dak Prescott and CeeDee Lamb play out, along with coach Mike McCarthy’s contract, rather than committing to them with an uncertain future. Owner Jerry Jones operated that way through the offseason. Until he caved.
Prescott was asking for a contract average starting with a six all offseason and the Cowboys were resisting jumping to a $60 million plateau. Until, of course, Jones caved on opening day. Lamb skipped training camp, without consequence, and joined Justin Jefferson as the only wide receiver to reach the $30 million average.
I’m not sure why the Cowboys operate this way. Perhaps they want to hold the money in their account as long as possible before paying it out to the players’ account when absolutely necessary. Perhaps there is some other reason, but it is now a playbook in which agents have familiarity. We should expect the same for Micah Parsons next summer.
Love and Tua: twin contracts
There were questions from outside the Packers and Dolphins as to whether Jordan Love and Tua Tagovailoa were worthy of the $50 million a year rate for top quarterbacks. Inside the organizations, however, there were no such questions, as both were rewarded with market-level contracts.
With the Packers only guaranteeing the first year of contracts—a precedent started by yours truly—Love’s deal has a massive $75 million signing bonus and $79 million in 2024 compared to $43 million for Tagovailoa. But after four years, the cash flow on the two contracts is exactly the same: $186 million.
This makes some sense, as the two players had the same agency (Athletes First) and signed on the same day. As to their talent, I said at the time, I felt Love was the much stronger player, and that seems to have been proven out.
Belichick goes to college, with a nudge from the NFL
With eight head coach openings in 2024 (including the New England Patriots), Belichick could only muster a single interview with the Falcons before that job went to Raheem Morris. And while Belichick seemed to enjoy his media gigs, he clearly still wanted to coach. So, he jumped at an opportunity to go to North Carolina, but certainly not without assessing potential NFL opportunities from several teams making changes in ’25. The response, we assume, was crickets. Thus, while many of Belichick’s peers are opting out of the wild west of college sports, Belichick is leaning in.
Whether it is his perceived need for control, his age, his monotone or whatever reason, NFL owners are not keen on bringing in the second-winningest NFL head coach of all time. And, although Belichick structured his UNC contract to give him an easy out to the NFL after June, good luck with that. If NFL owners aren’t hiring him at 71 or 72, they’re not hiring him at 73 years old.
On to 2025, it is, where business of football stories will continue to abound around the league. And as I always say, the business of sports always wins.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as NFL 2024: Top 10 Business of Football Stories of the Year.