• by Wayne Friedman , 4 hours ago

NFL’s TV networks and streaming platform partners witnessed advertising revenue growth of 7% to $5.9 billion for the 2025-26 season, according to media intelligence platform Guideline.

Regular NFL season TV advertising revenue was up 6% to $4.1 billion.

NFL playoff games were 13% higher to $1.1 billion. For the Super Bowl on NBC, ad revenue was $500,000 -- up 2% versus the previous year.

The NFL has seen continued growth over the past couple of years -- with a 14% gain to $5.02 billion for the 2023-24 season compared to the previous year, and a 9.6% increase in the 2024-25 season to $5.5 billion.

Guideline says the broadcast networks pulled in $5.19 billion in overall NFL ad revenue, with streaming platforms at $676 million. 

Streaming platform growth was up a modest 5% versus the previous year, with broadcasters 7% higher.

Looking at parent media companies across all owned platforms -- broadcast/cable networks and streaming/digital platforms -- Fox Corp. commanded the strongest results, with a 30% share of NFL ad revenue.

Paramount Global came in at 23%, followed by Comcast Corp. at 21%, Walt Disney with 12%, Amazon (Prime Video) at 10%, Netflix at 2% and National Football League (NFL Network), 2%.

Disney had 19% full-season revenue growth year-over-year, leading all parent company owners. Disney aired more games on ABC and ran numerous ABC/ESPN simulcasts.

Top media revenue by team shows the Philadelphia Eagles (the 2025-2026 NFL Super Bowl champion) earning the strongest results, followed by the Dallas Cowboys, the Los Angeles Rams, the Kansas City Chiefs, and the Denver Broncos.

Looking at the broader linear TV picture for all sports spending, this amounted to $14.0 billion in 2025 -- up slightly from $13.8 billion in 2024. 

The report finds 2026 is trending 13% higher than the year before, with first-quarter 2026 ad revenue at $4.3 billion. A year ago, ad revenue for that quarterly period was $3.8 billion.

In February of this year, NBC/Peacock aired the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics. Fox Television Network, FS1, Telemundo, and Universo will be airing the FIFA World Cup, which is scheduled to begin in a few weeks. 

Guideline tracks around $200 billion in actualized global media transaction anonymized data pulled directly from agency billing systems.