“This is an area that is like a sore on one portion of your body, and we can do more in this area to make the game attractive to everyone who’s qualified,” Graves said. “We’ve been around for 104, 105 years, and it is concerning that we’re still having these conversations today that we only have a few head coaches rather than many head coaches of color.”
More games will be streamed
N.F.L. games remain the most-watched programming on television partly because they are shown primarily on over-the-air networks like CBS and NBC, which starting this year will collectively pay the N.F.L. roughly $10 billion a year for the next decade.
But the league knows that younger fans are more likely to stream games over the internet, so it’s tiptoeing into the streaming space. Thursday night games were shown exclusively on Amazon last season, and this year, the popular Sunday Ticket package will be on YouTube, which will pay the N.F.L. at least $2 billion a year for the rights.
But N.F.L. games won’t be disappearing from over-the-air channels anytime soon.
“We feel that for as much as the business is evolving, when it comes to live content and premium sports events, people are finding them on the traditional outlets just as they did 10, 20, 30 years ago,” Mulvihill from Fox Sports said.
Will the Washington Commanders be sold?
In November, Daniel Snyder, the embattled owner of the Washington Commanders, said he hired bankers to explore a sale of part or all of the team he has owned since 1999. That came several weeks after Jim Irsay, owner of the Indianapolis Colts, said Snyder might have to be removed for sullying the league’s reputation.
It is unclear whether Snyder will unload the team, but if he does, it will sell for more than the $4.65 billion the Denver Broncos fetched in 2022. Several billionaires have shown interest, but Jeff Bezos, the executive chairman of Amazon and one of the richest men in the world, could easily outbid them, something many league owners would welcome. His name keeps popping up in news reports, but he remains coy about his interest.
