The National Football League is the biggest sports league in the entire country. The NBA and MLB have both rivaled them at one point or another, but there’s really no chance for anyone to catch the NFL. That’s why, when NBC inked an 11-year deal worth about $2.5 billion annually with the NBA, about $500 million per year more than the NFL, Roger Goodell was not very happy.

“Executives at the NFL are irritated. That deal irritated them,” journalist John Ourand said on Andrew Marchand’s podcast. “The idea that NBC is paying more for Sunday Night Basketball than for Sunday Night Football. These are people and personalities, and it makes the executives at the NFL crazy that that happens. So could they come in and just start to turn the (knob) because of that NBA deal?”

NBC is currently paying the NFL around $2 billion per year for its exclusive rights to Sunday Night Football, a handful of playoff games, and the Super Bowl once every four years. The deal was signed in 2021, but the 11-year extension came into effect just a couple of years ago in 2023.

The NFL’s media rights deal with NBC and other stations stretches to 2033, and while there is an opt-out clause for 2029, the league isn’t waiting that long. Driven by the belief that their current deals are drastically undervalued, the NFL is widely expected to open early renegotiations as early as a few months from now. In fact, February 2026 reports confirm that the impending value adjustments are already dictating network strategy, with NBC Sports executives actively running internal models in preparation for the NFL coming to the table this year.

“It shakes out with the networks paying a ton more money to the NFL. A ton more,” Ourand further said. “We’ve always talked about that line for the other league, who are the haves, who are the have-nots? That line is going to be much more defined once these rights come out, because all of a sudden, you have the Premier League that’s coming to market with all of its games.

“NBC is going to pay a lot more, and they’re going to be paying for NFL, they’re paying for the NBA. Can they afford something that’s really weekend morning programming in the Premier League? You have baseball that’s coming up.”

Ourand suggested that streamers are unlikely to make major inroads into prying NFL rights away from traditional broadcasters. Marchand, however, struck a more optimistic tone about their potential, pointing to platforms like Prime Video as having a real chance to expand their footprint.

Regardless, with NBC paying the NBA $500 million more annually—largely due to a massive tonnage difference of about 100 NBA games versus roughly 20 NFL games—Goodell will leap at this immediate opportunity to reset the market rather than waiting three more years.

NBA vs NFL Viewership

The NFL has the right to be irritated with NBC’s new deal with the NBA. All you have to do is look at the viewership numbers to understand how much more valuable the NFL is to a station than the NBA.

The NFL averages around 15-20 million viewers per game. Even in games with less-competitive matchups, the league still generally breaks the 10 million viewer mark. The NBA, however, averages about 1.5 million viewers per game. To put it into further perspective, last year’s NBA Finals averaged 10.3 million viewers. Round one of the NFL Draft, which averages a little over 12 million viewers, averages about two million more viewers than the NBA’s championship series.

Sunday Night Football is also arguably the most valuable TV slot available. For 15 consecutive seasons, Sunday Night Football has ranked as the No. 1 program on primetime television. In 2025, SNF achieved its highest-ever viewership, averaging 23.5 million viewers per game. And as the game keeps growing, that number is only going to get bigger and bigger.

On top of SNF being the most sought-after TV slot, NBC also gets to host the Super Bowl once every four years. That may not seem like a lot, but around 124.9 million people watched the Super Bowl this year. Do you know how much money that generates for a network, even if they only get to broadcast it once every four years?

Even though the NFL can’t opt out of its current deal until 2029, discussions are likely already being held behind the scenes. Roger Goodell will try to milk the networks for every penny they’re worth in their upcoming deal. If the NBA can get $2.5 billion per year from NBC, I don’t even want to think about what the NFL could get in its upcoming media rights deal.