Thanks to the Green Bay Packers We Know the NFL is Rolling in the Dough
Yet Team Owners Continue to Demand Public Money for New Stadiums
By Ken Reed
The Green Bay Packers are the NFL’s only publicly-owned franchise. As such, the Packers are required to release annual financial figures.
Of course, the other 31 franchises, all privately owned, hate this. They’d prefer that nobody knew how much revenue they are pulling in.
The Packers had $579 million in revenue last year. That was a franchise record. Almost 60 percent of that revenue, $347.3 million came from the team’s share of the league’s growing media and sponsorship contracts. The shared league revenue rose by 12.3 percent last year. Player payroll across the league was capped at $188 million. Since player payroll is each team’s biggest expense, it’s clear that the Packers — and every other NFL franchise — made a tidy profit last season.
In addition, each year, NFL teams are getting a growing revenue boost from sports gambling partnerships, as sports gambling becomes legal in more and more states.
NFL owners also benefit from the crazy appreciation of their franchises. The Denver Broncos recently sold for a league record — and an American sports franchise record — $4.65 billion.
Despite this rosy financial picture, team owners, like the Pegula family in Buffalo, continue to demand taxpayer money to build new sports palaces, in which luxury seating and other revenue streams can be boosted to even greater heights.
Once long-term maintenance costs are factored in, the public’s share of the cost of building and operating the new stadium in Buffalo will be more than $1.1 billion. The public handout will go to Terry and Kim Pegula who have a net worth of $5.8 billion.
It’s all so shameful.
Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director, League of Fans

Sports Forum Podcast
Episode #29 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: The Honorable Tom McMillen Visits League of Fans’ Sports Forum – McMillen is a former All-American basketball player, Olympian, Rhodes Scholar and U.S. Congressman, and has a long involvement with the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sport (now called the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition). We discuss the state of college athletics today, given the pressures of NIL, the transfer portal, sports gambling and huge media contracts. McMillen then provides great perspective on the poor state of physical fitness our young people are experiencing today.
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Episode #28 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: A Chat With Mano Watsa, a Leading Basketball and Life Educator – Watsa is President of PGC Basketball, the largest education basketball camp in the world. We discuss problems in youth sports today.
Episode #27 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Kids’ Sports: How We Can Take Back the Game and Restore Quality Family Time In the Process – Linda Flanagan is author of “Take Back the Game: How Money and Mania Are Ruining Kids’ Sports and Why It Matters.” We discuss how commercialized and professionalized youth sports are hurting kids and their families.
Episode #26 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: How Can We Fix Youth Sports? – John O’Sullivan is Founder and CEO of Changing the Game Project and author of “Changing the Game: The Parents Guide to Raising Happy, High Performing Athletes and Giving Youth Sports Back to Our Kids.”
Episode #25 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Physical Education Should Be a Critical Component of K-12 School Design – Michael Horn is co-founder of the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation.
Episode #24 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Mental Health and Athletes: Ending the Stigma – Nathan Braaten and Taylor Ricci are the founders of Dam Worth It, a non-profit created to end the stigma around mental health at colleges and universities through sport, storytelling, and community creation.
Media
"How We Can Save Sports" author Ken Reed appears on Fox & Friends to explain how there's "too much adult in youth sports."
Ken Reed appears on Mornings with Gail from KFKA Radio in Colorado to discuss bad parenting in youth athletics.
“Should College Athletes Be Paid?” Ken Reed on The Morning Show from Wisconsin Public Radio
Ken Reed appears on KGNU Community Radio in Colorado (at 02:30) to discuss equality in sports and Title IX.
Ken Reed appears on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour (at 38:35) to discuss his book The Sports Reformers: Working to Make the World of Sports a Better Place, and to talk about some current sports issues.
- Reed Appears on Ralph Nader Radio Hour League of Fans’ sports policy director, Ken Reed, Ralph Nader and the New York Times’ Tyler Kepner discussed a variety of sports issues on Nader’s radio show as well as Reed’s updated book, How We Can Save Sports: A Game Plan. Reed's book was released in paperback in February, and has a new introduction and several updated sections.
League of Fans is a sports reform project founded by Ralph Nader to fight for the higher principles of justice, fair play, equal opportunity and civil rights in sports; and to encourage safety and civic responsibility in sports industry and culture.
Vanderbilt Sport & Society - On The Ball with Andrew Maraniss with guest Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director for League of Fans and author of How We Can Save Sports: A Game Plan
Sports & Torts – Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director, League of Fans – at the American Museum of Tort Law
Books