Business was booming in 2025, as it has every year for the NFL, the undisputed king of the sports attention economy in the United States. There are so many items to choose from, but here are, in no specific order, my top 10 business of football stories from the year.
Micah Parsons traded
In what was one of those “where were you when?” moments, the Cowboys traded a player who is 26 years old, has made the Pro Bowl each year of his career (and did so this year despite a late injury) and plays the premium position of pass rusher. It was, and still is, a stunner.
I never thought the Cowboys would trade Parsons, and I never thought the Packers would trade for him. With the Cowboys, we had seen this pattern in recent negotiations with Dak Prescott and CeeDee Lamb: Owner/general manager Jerry Jones waits until the very last minute, then ends up paying top dollar. Why wouldn’t that happen here? Well, there was something different, something more negative, with his relationship with Parsons. And as for the Packers, as I know so well from my time working there, they love their draft picks; giving two first-round picks for anyone, even Parsons, was a surprise.
Players like Parsons just don’t get traded. Unless, of course, they do.
Corporate ownership is infiltrating the NFL
It has been barely a year since the NFL became the last of the major U.S. pro sports leagues to allow private equity investment in its franchises. With franchise valuations skyrocketing, NFL owners could no longer resist the lure of PE to provide liquidity, and several ownership groups jumped in.
The Dolphins sold a 10% (the maximum allowed by the NFL) stake to Ares Management; the Bills sold a 10% stake and the Chargers sold an 8% stake to Arctos Partners; the Patriots sold a 3% stake to Sixth Street; the 49ers sold a 3.2% stake to Fortress; and the Giants sold a 10% stake to the Koch family.
All of the above were sold at valuations exceeding $8 billion, with the Giants’ valuation exceeding $10 billion. No ownership group is giving up any semblance of control; these are passive cash infusions of hundreds of millions of dollars for NFL owners to use as they please, without giving up a shred of influence.
Socialize cost, privatize profit
As the year ends, two storied franchises are searching for new stadiums or, more accurately, searching for someone to pay for the bulk of their new stadiums. And they are having differing levels of success.
The Bears, despite their on-field success, have been rebuffed by both the city of Chicago and the Illinois suburb of Arlington Heights in their desire for over $800 million of “infrastructure costs.” Thus, they are currently casting their eye on Indiana to gauge the level of interest in their neighboring state.
The Chiefs had a stadium subsidy measure fail in Jackson County, Mo., where Arrowhead Stadium currently sits, so it looked to the neighboring state of Kansas, which was clearly ready to “show them the money,” and did.
Although the deal is far from complete, Kansas will foot roughly $2 billion of the $3 billion tab for a new, domed stadium and multi-use district. That kind of subsidy makes the $850 million the Bills received from New York and the $1.1 billion the Commanders are receiving from D.C. seem like good deals.
Of course, the Hunt family—owners of the Chiefs—does not “need” this money, but these resources are incredibly scarce, and with multiple jurisdictions bidding to house the team, the team played the leverage well. Socialize cost, privatize profit.
NFL to own 10% of ESPN
In August, ESPN purchased the NFL Network, NFL Fantasy and RedZone distribution rights in a landmark deal. As to what the NFL received, well, it is a 10% equity stake in ESPN. While it requires regulatory approval, I would expect to see subtle changes as NFL coverage from the NFL Network and ESPN becomes more similar.
Will the NFL dictate some of ESPN’s editorial content? I’d say no, at least not on the surface. But when there are sensitive issues, I would expect there will be a line that ESPN may not cross, one that they perhaps would have crossed before. And at some point, the duplication of talent will likely result in layoffs of on-air and off-air personnel.
The Wall Street Journal values ESPN at $25 billion to $30 billion, meaning the NFL now has a $2.5 billion to $3 billion investment in the network. That can, and should, buy a lot of influence.
Jets’ shrewd trades (yes)
Speaking of giving up two first-round picks, the Colts did that for Sauce Gardner at the trade deadline, and he has barely played for them since. I thought then and now that it was a masterful move by the Jets, and readers of mine know that the words “masterful” and “Jets” are not ones that I typically use together. But to me, two first-round picks are reserved for either established quarterbacks or the very elite pass rushers such as Parsons and Myles Garrett. Not Gardner.
The Jets also secured a first-rounder and a second-rounder from the Cowboys for Quinnen Williams. Again, a good player, but not worth that price. The Jets continue to be a losing organization on the field, but these off-field moves were admirable.
Bengals’ spending spree? Sort of …
After rewarding quarterback Joe Burrow with a top-of-market contract of $55 million per year, the Bengals doubled down on their offensive skill-position spending. They made wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase the highest-paid player at the position in NFL history, with an astounding $42 million per year average, and then increased spending at that position to $70 million per year, with a $28 million average contract for Tee Higgins.
Along the way, the notoriously thrifty Bengals did hold the line with their premium pass rusher, Trey Hendrickson, as their porous defense—combined with Burrow being injured much of the season—led to disappointing results for the team.
The Bengals’ lopsided spending at the wide receiver position is certainly not the norm. Still, it does reflect the explosion in the marketplace at that position, especially compared to other skill positions—running back and tight end—where the market has stagnated.
Best story in sports shining bright
The NFL has rewarded markets that are not exactly warm-weather cities with Super Bowls, but let’s be serious here: That will never happen for Green Bay. But Titletown did get rewarded with hosting duties for the NFL draft, and it glistened in all its glory to the nation. Some 13.6 million people watched the first round. To see Roger Goodell read 32 names. Amazing.
As for the draft itself, the biggest story involved a player who ended up being the 144th pick, Shedeur Sanders. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a disconnect between how some draft pundits, even highly respected ones, viewed an NFL prospect and how actual NFL scouts viewed the same player.
The professionalization of college football (and basketball)
It had been coming for a while, but 2025 was truly the year when the top tier of college sports became professionalized. In a world where five years ago it was not permitted to give a college athlete a slice of pizza, schools now directly pay them millions of dollars for their NIL (name, image and likeness) value. As I say often, NIL now stands for “Now It’s Legal.”
Although the money is certainly not the same, college football players have a better system of free agency than NFL players. While NFL draftees are not free agents until four years in the league and have expired long-term contracts, college players are free agents every year, as there is no incentive for them to do more than one-year deals with an unregulated and unlimited transfer portal. And while there is a cap in college sports, cap compliance is basically an honor code, and we all know what that means.
The professionalization of college sports has led to the hiring of many general managers with NFL backgrounds (which I do not have) and NIL consultants with NIL backgrounds (which I do). We are all hoping for more of an NFL-style system in coming years, with competitive balance baked in.
Speaking of which …
Parity in the NFL (sort of)
The NFL system is “rigged,” if you will, with things like the draft, the salary cap and free-agency restraints to make it easier for bad teams to get good and more complicated for good teams to stay good. As we end the season, much of the goal of this competitive balance (parity) is working.
The Chiefs have been good for many years; this year, they were bad. The Patriots and Bears were bad for several years; this year, they’re good. The Broncos and Seahawks had been good; now they’re really good. The Commanders were in the NFC championship game last year; now they’re at the bottom of the league. The Colts were really good and then really bad in the same season, as were teams such as the Buccaneers, Panthers, Texans, Lions and Cowboys. And so on.
Yes, there are the teams with sustained success: the Eagles, Packers, 49ers, Rams, Steelers, Ravens, etc. And yes, there are the teams consistently looking up and drafting high: the Jets, Giants, Titans, Raiders, etc. But overall, this league, founded on equal revenue sharing and being only as strong as its weakest link, is working.
Speaking of which …
Still the undisputed king
According to recent valuations from Sportico, NFL franchise values average $7.1 billion. As noted above, teams are selling off fractional stakes in their teams for hundreds of millions, even billions of dollars, for easy cash infusions with no transfer of any control.
The league is still barely halfway through a team-friendly CBA with the players, one that has a highly beneficial 10-year term.
The league is less than halfway through 11-year media contracts worth a cumulative $110 billion, and that number, staggering at the time, now seems low. The NFL can opt out of the deals in a few years, but may choose to renegotiate sooner, even as soon as 2026. With so many options now—NBC, CBS, ESPN, Fox, Amazon, Google (YouTube), Peacock, Netflix and more to come—it is certainly a seller’s market.
It is hard to know what could knock the NFL off its lofty perch as the undisputed king of sports consumption, popularity and prosperity.
More NFL on Sports Illustrated
- NFL Week 18 Picks From the MMQB Staff: Ravens and Steelers Battle for Playoff Berth
- NFL Playoff-Clinching Scenarios for Week 18 and What’s At Stake
- NFL Upset Predictions and Picks for Week 18 (Can Jets Hand Bills Another Loss?)
- Aaron Rodgers Gives Glimpse into Playing Future Ahead of Week 18 Showdown With Ravens
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Follow the Money in Our Top 10 Business of Football Stories for 2025 .
