Strong Financial Start to the New NFL Season

Published on October 15th, 2018
Written By: Ned Wilson


The first weekend of the NFL season generated more than $280 million in advertising revenue for the league with the number of companies buying up advertising space up 22% on the previous year. The biggest spenders in the first week were Toyota, General Motors and Verizon Wireless.

The good news also comes from the NFL and the performance of their digital platform, which is up 65% from the first four weeks of 2017, with an average audience of 326.000 viewers per game window across different platforms.

With some controversy affecting NFL last year, followed by a 1.7% decrease in television advert revenue, this positive news is a welcome break for the league, which is also expected to benefit from a recent Supreme Court decision to lift a federal ban on sports betting, which is expected to result in growth of live match viewership adding to the growth in commercial revenues. The growth has already been there with TV viewership up 54% so far this year, a significant increase knowing some of the challenges that the TV broadcast has been facing over the past few years.

The change in online policy for prime time and local matches, whereby these are now streamed free of charge on the league apps, has also contributed to the fast growth of online customers, contributing to the NFL's already strong advertising appeal.