NFL league/team sponsorship revenue 2010-2021

Sponsorship spending on the National Football League (NFL) and its teams has increased annually since 2010, reaching 1.8 billion U.S. dollars worldwide during the 2021 season. Nike is one of the league’s main sponsors, providing uniform and apparel to all 32 NFL teams since 2012 – the two parties agreed a long-term extension to their rights partnership in 2018.

Why are sponsorship deals worth so much?

Sponsors are prepared to spend large amounts of money to get their brand displayed on big screens and pitch-side hoardings in stadiums across the NFL. Attracting the attention of supporters within the stadiums is one aim, but the primary motive for the investment is to have the brand exposed to the millions of TV viewers worldwide – the average television viewership of an NFL regular-season game in the United States during the 2021 season was around 17.1 million.

Sports sponsorship across the U.S.

The NFL is by far the most popular sport in terms of TV viewership in the United States: NFL games accounted for the vast majority of the top most-watched sporting events in the United States in 2020. It is no surprise, then, that the NFL generates more money from sponsorship deals than both the National Basketball Association (NBA) and Major League Baseball (MLB). Figures for the NBA increased significantly during the 2017-2018 season as it began allowing shirt sponsorship for the first time.