Future Effects From 2020-2021 NFL Season
Evan Krause
The NFL makes billions and billions of dollars in revenue each year. During the last season, the NFL and NFLPA signed an agreement for the revenue share between the NFL and the players. This revenue percentage is going to go up to 48% by 2021 and will go up to 48.8% during the first 17 game season. During the COVID-19 virus, the NBA and many other leagues have started back up and run in an orderly fashion. Even though the revenue for these seasons has gone down a lot for these sports, for the most part they have been running smoothly. In the past few weeks for the NFL, there have been many positive COVID tests that have made people think of what would be the effect of an NFL season shutdown. An NFL season shutdown or even a no fan season would lead to a loss in revenue for the years to come. The NFL will no matter what happens, lose a lot of money during this 2020 NFL season.
A prediction for this season without any fans in the stadium could lead to multi-billion dollar losses for the league. According to a wall street journal article about the potential losses for the NFL season it says, “The coronavirus pandemic has burst the league’s $16 billion revenue bubble. NFL revenue could fall as much as $4 billion in 2020,”. This projection could lead to a huge loss of revenue and could hurt the league and player's paychecks for years to come. If the NFL were to lose this amount of money then the salary cap could be decreased for each team which would leave incoming free agents a lot less money on the table and could lead to shorter deals this upcoming offseason. Overall, if the league loses a lot of money this could lead to the following 10 years being affected negatively by the COVID-19 outbreak.
If there would be another major outbreak in the league, then the league may have to look at a bubble format to finish out the season. If this would occur, this could lead to more revenue lost and would cost the NFL 100s of millions of dollars. An article on the cost of the bubble from ESPN said, “Operating the three-month completion of the NBA season at the Walt Disney World Resort will cost the NBA more than $150 million”. This cost of 150 million dollars for the NBA to do a bubble could reflect the same for the NFL if they did a bubble. Also, doing a bubble for the NFL could lead to even more money spent than the NFL because the NBA only needs a couple of courts to have it all work out and the NFL would need NFL regulation football fields. If the NFL would have to do this than this could cost more than what the NBA did to finish their season and the NFL would also have to accommodate a lot more players than the NBA too.
My third and final thing is that the NFL seems to be getting fewer viewers for their games which will lead to less money from sponsors and also cable companies. An article from Variety.com said, “Defending Super Bowl champions the Kansas City Chiefs’ winning effort against the Houston Texans averaged 19.3 million viewers on NBC, per Nielsen. That is down approximately 13% from the 2019 season opener that pitted the Green Bay Packers against the Chicago Bears.”. This is showing how the ratings are down even with the games being played. This could be due to all of the sports being played right now such as the NBA, MLB, and the NHL. All of these sports are being finished up right now and this shouldn’t be anything alarming to the NFL but it might be something that may affect the revenue. This amount of competition between all of the leagues could lead to a revenue loss for all of them and this would hurt everyone's paycheck. This may be nothing but a decrease in viewership could lead to a revenue loss for the NFL and could affect the salary cap if the viewership doesn’t go up.
Overall, there is a lot at stake this season with the NFL and this season could affect many years to come. Even though a lot is unseen for this season, there has to be some worry by the NFL about the positive tests and also the decrease in viewership. This all is most likely going to affect the NFL for many years to come and this season could be in jeopardy if there's a sudden boom in COVID-19 cases.
Works Cited
Beaton, Andrew. “Coronavirus Is Pushing the NFL Toward a Financial Cliff.” The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones & Company, 24 July 2020, www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-is-pushing-the-nfl-toward-a-financial-cliff-11595592000.
Flint, Joe. “How Could the NFL's Covid-19 Outbreak Affect the Season?” The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones & Company, 30 Sept. 2020, www.wsj.com/articles/how-will-the-nfl-season-be-affected-by-the-coronavirus-pandemic-11598788800.
Gough, Christina. “Potential Revenue Losses in the NFL Due to Coronavirus in the U.S. 2020.” Statista, 18 June 2020, www.statista.com/statistics/1114841/covid-nfl-revenue-loss/.
Otterson, Joe. “NFL Season Opener Draws 19.3 Million Viewers on NBC, Down 13% From 2019.” Variety, Variety, 22 Sept. 2020, variety.com/2020/tv/news/nfl-ratings-kansas-city-houston-1234767281/.
Windhorst, Brian. “Sources: Orlando Bubble to Cost NBA More than $150 Million.” ESPN, ESPN Internet Ventures, 1 July 2020, www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/29394052/orlando-bubble-cost-nba-more-150-million.
This was a very informative blog post. I thought it was interesting that NFL viewership actually went down this year by about 13%. I would think that since sports were shut down for a good part of this year, that people would be hungry to watch sports now that it is available. I also thought the part about the NFL bubble was interesting. Based on what I’ve seen, I don’t think the NFL would be able to coordinate a bubble for so many people considering that some teams have already gotten Covid outbreaks. The viewership numbers will definitely affect the salary cap as you mentioned. This could cause teams to rue future decisions, because it will be difficult to pay the players that they’d like to retain. I think that the NFL will have to do something drastic to bring up viewership and revenue, or else next season will cause a lot of change in the NFL due to significantly lower salary cap.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very tough situation for the NFL to be in. The players, coaches and spectators defiantly repine. It is hard for them to go from making millions of dollars of revenue a year to close to nothing. I am sure the NFL rues the day that CoronaVirus came along because it is becoming very hard to bring in revenue, which like you said, causes them to have to pay their players less. Now, I believe that the NFL should have an emissary who is very truculent to help them win an argument with the government to allow certain amount of fans, or other ways to bring in more money then they are now. It is very hard for the dexterous players to continue to play if they are not being paid enough to sustain a lifestyle. Overall, this was a very informative blog with lots of information as to where the NFL is headed.
ReplyDeleteIt is very obvious that a lot of the US is struggling right now because of the effects of COVID. I didn’t realize that the NFL is losing BILLIONS of dollars on one season because of the loss of viewers, and lower to no fans being allowed. Allowing more fans at this point wouldn’t be smart for safety reasons so how can the NFL find new ways to gain revenue. I find it interesting that the leaders of the NFL have been discussing the option of going into a bubble just like the NBA did. Personally, I think that the NBA bubble was genius and allowed for more viewers than there would have been because each game was set to happen. With the NFL, games have been rescheduled many times which makes it more confusing for the viewers. I hope that we will be able to have more fans attend games when it becomes safer.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was interesting to hear the specific numbers about how many fans stopped watching and how much money has been lost. The prediction of the NFL losing 4 billion dollars in 2020 demonstrates the truculent effect that coronavirus has had on entertainment industries. You also outlined how the NBA would be affected if they finished the season at the Walt Disney World Resort, and those numbers were shocking. However, I wasn’t exactly sure how this directly impacted our economy. Did this impact the unemployment rate? How much has this changed America’s GDP? Will this leave a lasting impact on our economy, or just the NBA/NFL? Answering these questions would give the reader a better idea of how closely this issue is tied to our economy.
ReplyDeleteSomething I found interesting about this article was your visual because you were able to have up to date information regarding the NFL and the impact Covid-19 has had on it. You were also able to share a visual that helped us understand sporting events of not just football but other sports like baseball, basketball, and hockey. I think that it was important you shared the connection between all the sports as it was interesting to see the difference. As of what they had predicted and what the real outcome was. I think it is important to understand and take precautionary measures to keep as many people as possible healthy and safe by not allowing people to come into stadiums but it is also a big money loss and this will seriously affect sports as we continue. If we get to this point of not being able to go to any sporting events of any sort a lot of people would become repine because of their love for the sports.
DeleteThe impact that COVID is making on every single thing right now is crazy and very overlooked in some areas. Despite the safety concerns that allowing fans in the stadium brings, resulting in far less revenue overall, I believe next year, assuming the season can be back to normal with fans and all the usual things an NFL game presents, attendance, viewers, and revenue will SKYROCKET. The excitement that people will have to attend a football game or get together with their friends to watch on TV will be unmatched and I wonder if it will be enough to overtake the loss that this season presented.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was researching for my blog post regarding the NFL, I was actually able to find a lot of valuable information that can be applied much farther than the bounds of the National Football League itself. When you think about it, the effects that COVID-19 has had on the NFL are remarkably similar to that of anything else. However, it's difficult to tell when things will return to a “normal” state, and how that “normal” state might differ from past years. For instance, prior to the pandemic, the sanitation and sanitation restrictions at professional sporting events were relatively lenient; and after COVID-19 has passed, those same lenient restrictions may not still be used, things may change to prevent such disasters from occurring again. I believe that professional corporations, and sporting leagues in particular are going to learn from this pandemic, and possibly impose various fan restrictions that might not have been there before. One thing is for sure, whether it's the NFL or not, the economical and social impacts resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic will certainly be felt for years to come.
ReplyDeleteDespite the NFL still opening up this season, the risks due to COVID-19 are obviously still tremendous. I like how you cross compared the NFL season to the NBA and how they did a bubble to hold their season in order to ensure no one got the virus. With that being said, you also pointed out how difficult that would be. I think it would be significantly harder for the NFL, as they have WAY more players to host, would need a MUCH bigger facility still, so the costs for hosting this bubble would be astronomical, and in my opinion, just unrealistic. These players would need to eat so much food, there is way too many of them, and I don’t even know of a facility that exists that could host all of this, as I think Disney resort in Orlando where the NBA hosted their bubble is still too small for the NFL. Overall, thinking about the future of the NFL is very interesting, and I guess we’ll see what they do in the time coming.
ReplyDeleteI never thought about how much this NFL season will affect future seasons to come. Not only will the seasons be affects but future prospects as well. Incoming players no matter how dexterous will have shorter contracts that are worth less money. Due to the decreased revenue the NFL and all the teams are facing they will have less money to be used on future players. The NFL not only will lose money from no fans being present, they will also loss money from the missed games. I bet those players who tested positive will rue whatever caused them to contract the virus for years to come. Due to the lower revenue I feel like there may be talks of lowering current contracts which will be met by truculent players.
ReplyDeleteThe NFL does seem to be handling this season pretty well during this pandemic even though there still seems to be a lot of cases in the league. But let’s just hope that the super bowl still gets its good ratings.
ReplyDeleteIt is very interesting to see how a multi-billion dollar organization such as the NFL is taking such a loss during the 2020-2021 season. It does make sense as most of the revenue is from ticket sales. Personally I have found the NFL less interesting this year, and I was shocked to learn that viewership had dropped that much as well. There had been talk about the NFL pursuing a bubble idea like the NBA. I think that this would be smart but if more fans were to come it would just encourage the spread of COVID-19. Sure NFL players would be able to show off their dexterous abilities, but it would cause the spread of COVID. I think many people would be truculent about the idea of letting more fans come to games overall. I also think that if the NFL does have a lot of positive COVID-19 cases appear they will rue the idea of being as open as they are. Especially if they started to let fans come to the games. Maybe they will have a couple teams be emissaries and test the waters of this bubble concept before making it wide spread throughout the country. Who knows maybe with this idea people will be content, however it is most likely some will be repined.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that sparked my interest while reading throught this blog post was wondering how Covid affected other sports. Obviously in the United States football is very popular, but so is baseball and basketball. I am curious to if these other sports also lost money and viewers due to the Covid-19 pandemic. I find it interesting on how the pandemic is really affecting everyone. The NFL has a lot of money, they are not a small business yet they are still taking a loss and losing money due to the new guidelines that have to be enforced. This shows that contrary to popular belief the virus affects much more than small businesses, but also multi-million dollar companies.
ReplyDeleteThe NFL's fan base will not also tank this year, but in up coming years too. Since no fans are going to the games, people will not get excited. A part of the NFL experience is to participate in the games as a crowd cheering for your team, but with covid, excitement drains and games become dull. Even seeing an empty stadium can be disappointing to fans. If fans aren't excited now, imagine 2021, where covid will probably not go away, and the next years will repeat like 2020. Over the next few years, people will just forget about football.
ReplyDeleteI'm not surpsied at all that the NFL and other sports such as the NBA and MLB lost viewers and money due to the pandemic because I remember being super intrested in the Bucks back in March and I was really confident in them winning a ring, once the season got delayed and then they started it back up I barley had intrest. I heard the NBA Finals was down milliions of viewers from previous years. I think it's because of the bubble and the fact that there aren't fans.
ReplyDeleteI believe that you bring up some valid points but when talking about the NFL going to a bubble format they me be better off cancelling the season with how much more space and money they would need to make a bubble run properly or anywhere near as successful as the NBA's was.
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