The new TV and media rights contract of the NFL, which has been expected for a few weeks, has been signed. The new deal runs for eleven years.
The contract will run from 2023 and 2033 and will bring the league $ 110 billion over that period, according to the Sports Business Journal. The league itself has not released any financial details. Ten billion dollars a year would almost double the current contracts.
The biggest media change is that Amazon Prime has secured the rights to the Thursday Night Game. ESPN is also getting back into the Super Bowl rotation. For the teams, it means first and foremost that the salary cap will increase dramatically over the next few years.
But some other exciting changes will also be possible in the future – such as the “flexing” of Monday Night Games, i.e. the possibility to swap games in advance on Monday evening in order to show the best possible pairings at prime time. So far this was only possible for the Sunday Night Games.
The new contract also includes the already expected possibility of expanding the regular season schedule to 17 games per team – a change that could take effect this year. Commissioner Roger Goodell confirmed Thursday that this option will be voted on at the team owners’ meeting in late March.
The general expectation is that this application will pass without any problems, which means that the preseason will be shortened by at least one game and the regular season will be extended by one game from the coming season.
