Even though NFL got the opportunity to become a major professional sport during 1950s, they were not able to reap its maximum benefits for few years. It all happened during 1960s where the league created an ideal platform for economic dominance. In the year 1959, Bert Bell, who was the long time NFL commissioner diet because of a sudden heart attack and Pete Rozelle came into play after that. He was there in the position for about 30 years, which delivered promising results to the American sports business.
Rozelle did many things in order to enhance the popularity of NFL and generate more revenues. The partnerships he established with television networks hold a prominent place out of them. In the present world, most of NFL’s revenues come from television broadcasts. During Rozelle’s time, people were in need of sports broadcasts. Baseball was dominating the channels at that time, but its popularity gradually reduced with the introduction of NFL. As a result of the NFL popularity, popular announcers came into commentary and NFL players got the opportunity to make money through commercials. All these plans were in the mind of Rozelle and he was able to execute them in a convenient manner.
In the meantime, NFL owners were able to increase their revenues through selling tickets. Even though some owners were afraid that increased television broadcast can reduce gate revenues, it didn’t happen like that. Instead, the gate revenues increased dramatically because of the popularity. This motivated Rozelle to move the league’s office to Rockefeller Center in the New York City. This opened opportunities for a wide range of revenue sharing plans that were targeting small market teams such as Green Bay packers. This gave the chance for such teams to obtain a competitive balance in the industry and ensure a competitive industry.
Over the past few years, the popularity of NFL increased gradually and its television contracts brought in a lot of revenue. In the present world, they have established partnerships with major television networks such as ESPN, Fox, CBS and NBC. These six year deals have the potential to bring in over 12 billion dollars for the 32 teams.
