The NFL generates more money than any American sports league, but it pays its players the least amount of money and it the only league that doesn’t have guaranteed contracts.
It is also the most dangerous team sport, but besides the NCAA who doesn’t pay their players anything, you would be better off being a 6th man in the NBA or a middle relief pitcher in MLB than a star NFL player.
Verizon will pay approximately $2.5 billion in a five-year deal with the NFL, sources told ESPN. That would be roughly twice the annual price of Verizon’s previous deal with the league.
The new deal for the largest U.S. wireless carrier looks very different from its last deal. That’s because Verizon has gone from being solely a mobile carrier to also being a video content company after its purchases of AOL in 2015 and Yahoo! in 2017 for $4.4 billion each.
The deal allows Verizon to stream live in-market NFL games on any one of its websites, with Yahoo! being the predominant home.
Unlike the last deal, which allowed Verizon to have the exclusive streaming rights for in-market live games only on mobile phones, the live in-market games will be available on the Verizon platforms on phones of all carriers starting this postseason. In 2018, it will include all tablets.
Players should take note of all this money coming in because they deserve a bigger piece of the pie.