Premium sports can be boosted by the effects of supply and demand. The NFL has that dialed in -- even with the streaming platforms clamoring for more strong-performing content.

Five to six hours a week is all you need to be an ardent fan, said Mike Tirico, play-by-play announcer for NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” recently on CNBC.

You could add around 30 minutes to check on your fantasy team and 45 minutes to watch a little pregame TV/streaming content and you are good to go.

It is all about efficiency for building more value into each game -- 17 games per season for each team. Much of this is translated into why the NFL is key in drawing in big audiences, as well as growing year over year --rare for any TV programming content.

The NFL is up 10% versus a year ago to around 18.7 million viewers for the average NFL game on the five TV networks/platforms -- NBC, CBS, Fox, ABC/ESPN and Prime Video -- according to MoffettNathanson Research.

Not only that but valuation for each NFL team has now risen to $6.5 billion each on average.

This comes from just 17 games per season per team. Counter that with Major League Baseball now at 162 games a season for each team -- and NBA and NHL’s 82 games each.

The goal going forward for any league is finding ways to make those games more special. 

Consider the NBA's “NBA Cup” which started up last season -- something that ran in a 30-day period in November/December. This was an “in-season” tournament -- where the Los Angeles Lakers were crowned champions in its first year.

The NBA was able to grow its TV audience with the NBA Cup -- all to improve the usual ho-hum competitive early weeks of its season.  The championship game was up 46% to average 4.6 million on ABC and ESPN versus a similar Saturday Primetime game the year before. 

For its part, the NFL still believes it can offer up growth -- perhaps hinting at adding one more game a season, maybe an extra playoff game, or by expanding teams. The latter could be internationally. The NFL has played regular season games in London, Mexico, and Canada. Preseason games have also been held in Tokyo and Germany.

Lessons to be learned here? Maybe not just for sports.  Netflix, and others, have this supply-demand model working in other ways:  Some TV series only offer 10 or 12 episodes a season.

Less is more -- even if audiences are modest? Not always good news for brands. TV/streaming advertisers continue to be in a frantic search for reach, and key consumers to buy their stuff.

And, yes, it doesn’t hurt if those games are competitive, and among teams with a high-franchise profile (Kansas City Chiefs, San Francisco 49ers, Dallas Cowboys, Green Bay Packers).