Once upon a time, the NFL competed with other American sports.

Once upon a time, the NFL competed poorly with other American sports.

Now, the NFL doesn’t even view other American sports as competition.

A recent email regarding Ken Belson’s upcoming book — EVERY DAY IS SUNDAY: How Jerry Jones, Robert Kraft, and Roger Goodell Turned the NFL into a Cultural & Economic Juggernaut — shares a quote Commissioner Roger Goodell private made in the aftermath of Super Bowl LVIII in Las Vegas.

“We’re not competing with the NBA or MLB,” Goodell said. “Our competitors are Apple and Google.”

He’s right, even if the NFL is doing business with Google and could soon be doing business with Apple. The NFL keeps growing. Its influence expands to business beyond football. It’s the one thing that can consistently attract millions to watch an event live, from the significant (like the Super Bowl) to the trivial (like the Hall of Fame game). Even the draft, which could be done via group text, has been shaped into must-see TV and a live event that draws hundreds of thousands to witness, well, not much of anything.

Regardless of where the NFL goes from here, it has left other American sports in the dust. And, yes, it is targeting much bigger fish.

There’s another competitor that Goodell didn’t mention. On the surface, it seems ridiculous to even discuss. But the NFL surely hopes to chase, and to catch, soccer.

Yes, it’s ridiculous. At least as ridiculous as it would have been to suggest that pro football will catch Major League Baseball in the ‘30s, ‘40s, and ‘50s.

Source: https://www.nbcsports.com/nfl/profootballtalk/rumor-mill/news/roger-goodell-sees-apple-and-google-not-nba-and-mlb-as-nfls-competition

20 comments

  1. >On the surface, it seems ridiculous to even discuss. But the NFL surely hopes to chase, and to catch, soccer.

    It is ridiculous

  4. Great mindset and he is correct. The game is attention and only casual fans matter. People would rather do more engaging things on their phones than watch sports and every league is feeling it.

    Edit- You guys need to understand that the sports leagues NEED sports gambling to keep viewership.
    The battle for attention is that tough these days.

  5. In no way is the NFL competing with Apple and Google lol. Idk how you even come to that conclusion. Like saying McDonalds is competing with Chat GPT.

  8. You think you’ll catch football (soccer) globally?

    Fuck that’s hilarious. Europe already has a better game from the same origin which it prefers, and so does much of the rest of the world.

  9. It makes sense they believe this considering they just pulled out from Google’s service.

  10. Im confused why the NFL views a consumer device company as its competition

  11. CEOs are really just marketers and this is just CEO-speak for “we think we beat our competition easily”. Apple and Google being tossed in again is just the 15 year long jerkoff over the obsession of being a “tech company”, like how Tesla calls themselves a “tech company, not a car company”.

    So it is true in that the NFL wins out right now over other major sports in the US.

  12. I mean he’s not wrong. The NBA won’t even air games during football games meanwhile the NFL has no problem stepping on the NBA when it wants to with stuff like Christmas football. They are for sure competing in different spaces and the NBA knows it’s nowhere near the NFL popularity wise

  13. The crazy part is he is talking down on two sports that have a bigger global footprint than the NFL does. Say what you want about baseball but it has an amazing presence in places like Japan, Korea, Taiwan, the entire Caribbean, and parts of South America.

    The NFL doesn’t even come close to that.

  14. NFL revenue last year $23 billion

    Apple revenue last year $391 billion

    Google revenue last year $348 billion

    If you compete with them you are doing a awful job

  15. Apple & Netflix would have made more sense for what I think his intentions were. They’re all chasing for entertainment dollars. NBA & MLB are catering to fans of those sports.

  17. What the hell is the point of this post this is the Reddit version of when espn commentators won’t shut the fuck up about football during a basketball game

  18. I can’t imagine ppl being this obtuse . This relates the the attention capture and also who controls the platform access for content

  19. Am I the only one here that loves the NFL and football in general? Such a crazy negative comment section.

  20. > There’s another competitor that Goodell didn’t mention. On the surface, it seems ridiculous to even discuss. But the NFL surely hopes to chase, and to catch, soccer.

    Lmao good luck buddy. Not even gonna get into personal opinions about how much more entertaining soccer is than the NFL, but the fact is that the world over doesn’t give a fuck about American football when soccer is continuing to dominate in terms of popularity.

    There are international competitions which the NFL couldn’t even hope to compete with, and I’m referring to UEFA, not the World Cup which is a juggernaut the NFL will never hold a candle to.

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