Despite the hew and cry from conservatives that they would never watch an NFL game again, the league has entered into $110 billion ten-year agreements with CBS, NBC, Fox, ESPN/ABC and Amazon for broadcast rights, ESPN reports.
The agreements more than double the value of the last set of broadcast agreements for the league. In 2020, the average viewership for a game was 14.9 million, by far the most of any ad-driven show or sports program. It had dropped from 16.5 million in 2019.
Like many other events, the NFL was plagued by cancellations and rescheduling due to the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, which caused about a dozen games to be rescheduled. The NFL also traditionally sees a viewership drop in election years, with analysts thinking political advertisements shown during the games turn off fans.
The broadcasting agreements allow for three doubleheaders on Monday nights during the season, as well as at least one game streaming nationally on ESPN+. In a change, Amazon will have exclusive rights to broadcast the Thursday night games, which had been broadcast largely on the NFL Network; the games will be available over-the-air in the home markets for the competing teams.