[brid autoplay=”true” video=”783845″ player=”23231″ title=”Ten%20mustsee%20NFL%20games%20in%202021″ duration=”172″ description=”For football nerds, it’s become the biggest post-draft event of the spring. Sure, the matchups are predetermined, but there’s nothing like schedule release day.The NFL released the 2021 schedule on Wednesday as it enters its first-ever 17-game season. It’s never too early to start circling dates on your calendar for this fall, so here are 10 games you won’t want to miss.” uploaddate=”2021-05-17″ thumbnailurl=”//cdn.brid.tv/live/partners/17660/thumb/783845_t_1621259414.png” contentUrl=”//cdn.brid.tv/live/partners/17660/sd/783845.mp4″]
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic throwing the 2020 NFL schedule for a loop multiple times, the league managed to play all its games this past season, and as a result, its national revenue went up by $422.4 million.
Daniel Kaplan of The Athletic reported the news of the NFL revenue boom on Friday, which came from the Green Bay Packers’ earnings report. Overall, the NFL national revenue rose to $9.89 billion.
As part of the story, Packers CEO Mark Murphy shared his thoughts on the NFL landscape, which painted an optimistic picture for the future.
“[I have] an awful lot of confidence in the future, because of the long-term collective bargaining agreement that we have in place with our players association and the new long-term broadcast agreements that the league has entered into recently,” Murphy said.
Murphy may not be saying all the right things this offseason when it comes to his superstar quarterback Aaron Rodgers, but he is spot on with his assessment here.
Although local NFL revenue suffered greatly due to the prohibition fan attendance, which impacted ticket sales, concessions, merchandising and a variety of other business areas, there figures to be a huge rebound in that regard for 2021.
NFL revenue should continue to explode with new 17-game season
Players may not like putting themselves on the line for an additional regular-season matchup, but it was a move that was long suspected to be in the works. Because of the immense money each contest generates, from a business standpoint, it seemed like an inevitable expansion of the schedule.
Time will tell if it’s the right thing to do in terms of player safety. However, the big NFL revenue pie that all the teams share is going to be that much bigger.
Because of the increase in NFL revenue brought about by, as Murphy mentioned, the collective bargaining agreement and lucrative TV deals in the pipeline, the salary cap is slated to increase quite drastically in 2022. It should continue to rise in the years to come.
Thus, players will have the chance to continue earning greater paydays from their contracts alone, and that’s not even to mention the massive endorsement deals the NFL’s biggest stars get to cash in on.