The NFL has long been regarded as the preeminent television sport, a position attributed to the limited number of games that enhances the value of each contest and the league’s position as the pioneer in using national television as an instrument of growth and influence (Patton, 1984).

Key to the success of this approach was the league’s successful lobbying for the passage of the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 (P.L. 87-331) that allowed franchise owners in all professional sports leagues to equally share national television revenues.

The NFL’s present national television contracts, which cover the 1998-2005 seasons, will generate at least $17.6 billion over eight years from Fox, CBS, and jointly owned ABC /ESPN. This more than doubles the annual amount the league collects from slightly below $1.1 billion to at least $2.2 billion, with the league having the right to renegotiate after five years (Lafayette, 1998).

The NFL’s success in leveraging its product can be further demonstrated by its ability to increase national television money by a factor in excess of 4.5 in the last decade (“Pass the money,” 1998)-a time of network television viewer erosion and generally flat or even decreasing ratings for league games.

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NFL football clearly is seen as essential programming by the major television providers in limiting future viewer erosion. As explained by Fox President David Hill, “the NFL represents the only firm ground in the increasingly scary swamp of the TV industry” (Layfayette, 1998, p. 1).

Although the NFL has long tried to export its product outside the US through the international telecasting of games, the sale of team merchandise, “American Bowl” pre-season games, and NFL Europe (the newly named WLAF), the results have been decidedly mixed.

Both television ratings and attendance at the American bowls have declined and the NFL Europe has yet to establish itself as anything other than a minor league (Greising, 1994).

The NFL seems to be having problems in translating a game specific to the US to other nations, a serious impediment to long-term growth.

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Of course, with the Murdoch media companies just beginning to aggressively promote the game abroad the international audience certainly has the potential to expand.

In addition to the NFL Europe, the NFL now partially subsidizes the Canadian Football League (“CFL’s future,” 1997), and telecasts games and highlights to approximately 190 nations (“International TV, ” 1997).

Domestically, the NFL continues to thrive in developing new revenue sources. The league leads all other professional sports leagues in generating over $3.5 billion per year in gross licensed merchandise sales (Schaaf, 1995, p. 234).

The league has also developed a new source of revenue through its “NFL Sunday Ticket” pay-per-view service which provides feeds of out of town games to satellite dish owners (Helyar, 1994).

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The NFL’s main problems are internal and primarily related to franchise roulette rather than to television. The main concern of the league is that franchise relocations will lead to judicial and legislative challenges to the highly lucrative operational patterns of the league.

In fact, the league has told Congress that they would stop the franchise movement if given another anti-trust exemption (Griffith, 1996).

Of course, expansion from the present thirty franchises (an increase of only four since 1970) would minimize franchise movement.

However, the league, like all other professional leagues, sees great benefit in keeping the number of teams artificially small. Scarcity enhances the revenue of existing teams and is the tool used to extract new facilities and other municipal subsidies.