Television
Distances, coupled with a desire to see your team on the road, are why the television broadcasters and networks pay insane amounts of money for the rights to show games. They know that there are tens of thousands of people who’d like to watch, but can’t afford to go, so they bid against each other for sole ownership of those rights. The money then gets shared to the teams, using different methods and formulae.
At the low end, the 9-team Canadian Football League shares their $40 million deal equally with all the teams, and that money is essentially enough to pay all the players. The National Basketball Association shares $2.6 billion in TV money each year with its teams, and the National Football League splits approximately $7 billion between its 32 teams. In 2017, this amounted to $244 million per team, just from the TV rights alone.
As a result, supporters of any team in North America are able to see that team, or any other, whenever they choose. And that’s just TV. The burgeoning digital demand has made online access to games even easier, and more lucrative for leagues and teams.
