• by Wayne Friedman , September 25, 2025

Due to rising value in the sports TV marketplace, the NFL is likely moving to use its contractual option to significantly add more annual revenues from TV networks/streamers -- around $8 billion in total per year, according to projections from Guggenheim Securities.

The process, which could start in the next year or two, could ramp up its annual rights fees revenues from five TV networks/streamers by $8 billion -- from around $10 billion to around $18 billion, according to Michael Morris, media analyst of Guggenheim Securities.

“We believe that a new set of agreements could begin with the 2027 season,” he writes. “Note that while a sizable step up, the implied cost per viewer hour would remain attractive for distribution partners in comparison to other rights.”

Through the current NFL deal signed in 2021 with Walt Disney (ABC and ESPN), Fox Corp., Comcast Corp. (NBCUniversal), Paramount Skydance (CBS) and Amazon are at a collective $110 billion over 11 years. Morris says that compared with the recent NBA deal, on a “cost per viewer hour," it is relatively cheap.

“NFL rights fees cost less than half the rate charged by the NBA on a per viewer hours basis,” he says.

For the NFL, this comes to an estimated $1.27 million cost per viewer hour/per season versus the NBA’s $3.55 million cost per viewer hour/per season.

The NBA's recent $77 billion 11-year deal is with ESPN/ABC, NBCUniversal, and Amazon. Last year, the NBA through its TV partners aired 336 regular-season and playoff games; the NFL aired 123 regular-season and playoff games.

Regular-season NBA games last season averaged 1.6 million Nielsen-measured viewers, with early playoff rounds coming in at 4.4 million and conference finals at 7.0 million.

This compares to the NFL’s 17.5 million viewers per regular-season game, 27.8 million for its wild-card playoff games, 36.6 million for divisional playoffs, and 50.8 million for conference finals.

In total, the NFL delivered eight billion viewer hours, and the NBA took in two billion viewer hours.

“We note that even our analysis -- which concludes that the most recent NBA deal is priced at 2.8x -- the current NFL deal on the cost per viewer hour metric (using average annual contract cost) likely underestimates the relative value of the NFL rights.”

This is why analysts believe NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell wants to use the existing contractual option -- struck four years ago in 2021 -- to now adjust to rising TV sports value among TV networks and streamers.

For the NFL, TV networks/streamer programming could be extended into more non-traditional TV show content (for example, ESPNs’ “ManningCast”) as well as adding an 18th game to the regular-season schedule.

There is speculation that the likes of YouTube and Netflix could expand their NFL games, adding to those existing full-season NFL TV partners.