Christina Gough
Research expert covering sports and video gaming
National Football League (NFL) - statistics & facts
The National Football League (NFL) is one of the most popular professional sports leagues in the United States and across the world. The league comprises 32 teams across two conferences, the National Football Conference (NFC) and the American Football Conference (AFC), that each consist of four divisions. The championship game, more commonly known as the Super Bowl, draws in millions of viewers every year, making it one of the highlights of the sporting calendar.
League revenues
The NFL as a whole increased its revenue every year for almost 20 years, from around six billion U.S. dollars in 2004 to more than 18 billion U.S. dollars in 2022. The league experienced a drop in revenue for the first time in 2020, no doubt due to the impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on professional sports leagues across the world. However, when comparing the NFL's revenue to other big leagues in North America, football always comes out on top. The revenue of Major League Baseball (MLB) was at 9.56 billion U.S. dollars in 2021, while the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the National Hockey League (NHL) generated around 10.02 and 5.93 billion U.S. dollars in annual revenue respectively.NFL franchises
The Dallas Cowboys were the highest-grossing team in the league, generating over 1.1 billion U.S. dollars in revenue, with the Las Vegas Raiders, the Los Angeles Rams, the New England Patriots, and the New York Giants rounding out the top five in terms of revenue in 2022. The Cowboys were also the most valuable franchise in the NFL, with a value of nine billion U.S. dollars. The Cincinnati Bengals were estimated as being the least valuable, with a worth of 3.5 billion U.S. dollars. League-wide, NFL franchises were worth around 5.1 billion U.S. dollars on average in 2023, demonstrating significant growth in overall team values since the turn of the century. Compared to the NBA, MLB, and the NHL, NFL franchises were generally estimated to be the most valuable.Football fans
The NFL was also the professional sports league with the highest average per game attendance, drawing almost 70 thousand average spectators per game and more than 18.8 million in total throughout the 2022 season. While this figure predictably dropped during the COVID-hit 2020 season, total regular season attendance rose to higher than pre-pandemic levels in ensuing two seasons. The passion for NFL displayed by its fans can be further explored in the Statista Global Consumer Survey's Playbook on NFL Fans 2022.The Super Bowl
The NFL's annual championship game, the Super Bowl, is one of the biggest single-day sports events in the world, drawing high television ratings each year and generating several billion U.S. dollars in consumer spending. The Pittsburgh Steelers and the New England Patriots are the joint most successful teams of all time at the Super Bowl, having both lifted the coveted Vince Lombardi Trophy a total of six times each.
