In the United States, the all-powerful NFL crushes everything in its path, even the NBA

On October 26, TNT viewers had a surprise. Inside The NBA, the channel’s flagship program starring Shaquille O’Neal, Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith and host Ernie Johnson, is on the menu after the evening’s matches. Traditionally scheduled on Thursday, the show has been brought forward to Tuesday. TNT has not warned anyone, perhaps not to publicly admit what everyone will very quickly understand: the head-on collision with the NFL Thursday Night Game is doing too much harm to its audiences. Two days later, TNT announced that Inside The NBA will now be broadcast on Tuesday nights until the end of 2021. By the time the NFL regular season comes to an end. A great first.

What could have been only an epiphenomenon is in reality only further proof of the increasingly unbalanced balance of power between the two main American Leagues. This is not the first, and arguably the last, that the NBA has to retreat to avoid this type of head-on collision it knows it cannot win. For ten years, she gave up scheduling matches on Thanksgiving Day. The end of a tradition that has been firmly established for decades. In question, already, the face-to-face with the “double header” of the NFL which, by placing two matches on this festive Thursday, has focused the attention … and the audiences.

75 of the 100 best TV audiences in 2021

From this side of the Atlantic, it is difficult to measure the omnipotence of the League, led since 2006 by commissioner Roger Goodell, a controversial and often criticized personality, who has undeniably contributed to setting new economic standards. The NFL enjoys unparalleled popularity in the United States, despite controversy surrounding the dangerousness of the sport. In 2014, Barack Obama himself had released a phrase that had caused a lot of talk: “If I had a son I wouldn’t let become a professional footballer“.

But if some may hesitate to play US football, or to let their children follow this path, almost everyone continues to watch it. More than ever, even. The Top 100 of American TV audiences in 2021, unveiled a few days ago by Nielsen (the US mediamétrie), confirms the ultra-domination of the NFL in this area. 75 of the 100 programs that generated the most audiences last year are games or shows devoted to the NFL.

Even more striking, the League trustees 28 of the first 30 hearings. The only exceptions? Joe Biden’s presidential induction and his speech to Congress. No game from any of the other professional US sports organizations (NBA, MLB, NHL, MLS …) manages to slip into the Top 100. Regarding sport, the crumbs left by the NFL concern the Tokyo Olympics (10), college football (7) and college basketball (2).

The League which was worth (over) 100 billion

The economic weight of the various Leagues does not say anything else. The Super Bowl, the flagship of the NFL, generates more revenue on its own, not than the NBA Finals and the World Series (the final series of the baseball championship), but than all the NBA and MLB playoffs. And according to the annual ranking of Forbes magazine, 26 of the 50 most economically powerful teams in the world of sport emanate from the NFL, against 9 in the NBA and “soccer” (with Real Madrid and FC Barcelona in the Top 5) and 6 for the MLB. During the last pre-Covid season, which penalized all the championships, in particular because of the measures behind closed doors, the NFL exceeded 17 billion in revenue, almost as much as the NBA and MLB combined.

And this gap has not stopped growing, at least in the short term. Roger Goodell has set the objective: 25 billion in revenue by 2025. It appears almost “modest”. In March 2021, the NFL has indeed completed its new round in terms of TV rights. They are astronomical. The sum corresponds approximately to the double of what the NFL currently reports the broadcast of its meetings, within the framework of commitments made until 2022 inclusive. The next contract will cover 11 seasons (2023-2033) and will bring in between 105 and 110 billion dollars for the League, or nearly 10 billion per season. Four times more, there too, than what touches the NBA.

Big networks like CBS, NBC and Fox, as well as ESPN, longtime partners of the NFL, have not hesitated to break the bank. Because they know that the game is worth the candle, but also because of the threat of new players like Amazon. The firm of Jeff Bezos entered for the first time in this historic round table, by offering itself the exclusivity of the match of Thursday evening. For a single weekly game, Amazon will shell out around $ 900 million. But it also paid for the exclusivity of the rights online, another nerve of this war. Goodell’s NFL counts the points and collects the tickets.

The danger of dropping out among young people?

However, it has a notable handicap: its international influence, much lower than that of the NBA. Football … US is by definition a much less universal sport than basketball. However, there too, it progresses, thanks in particular to a man: Tom Brady. Seven-trophy quarterback Vince Lombardi is a personality who has transcended his discipline.

This week, ESPN devotes an article to him via this prism, where Brady is presented as “the Michael Jordan of the NFL”. It is undoubtedly exaggerated. Jordan, the man behind the planetary basketball explosion at the crossroads of the ’80s and’ 90s not only increased the notoriety and popularity of the NBA across the globe, but it has also been accompanied by a dramatic increase in the popularity of the NBA. convenient. This is not yet the case for American football.

The fact remains that the Brady effect, “the first global icon of the NFL” as ESPN defines it, is felt year after year. While the NFL has been gaining market share in the UK for a little while now (the number of people who have watched at least one NFL game has climbed 65% in three years), it is now also reaching markets like Brazil (he is the husband of Brazilian model Gisele Bundchen), China, Australia, Mexico or … Denmark. Aware of his position, Tom Brady does not hesitate to promote his sport abroad, as during his trip to China in 2017. But Brady-addiction is a concern.

The other pitfall facing the NFL is the new generation. According to a poll taken at the end of 2019, 33% of American adults named the NFL as their favorite league, far ahead of the MLB (16%), NBA (10%), NHL (5%) and MLS (3%). But among 18-22 year olds, the NFL plummets to 23%, while the NBA is growing very sharply, to 19%. When Generation Z takes power in terms of consumption, will there be some kind of rebalancing? It’s possible. But this will take time. In the meantime, the NFL, strong in its omnipotence, continues to make rain and shine in the American sports landscape.