About this episode
The episode explores the history and business evolution of the NFL, highlighting its significance in American culture and its financial growth.
The NFL is nearly synonymous with America today. Practically nothing is more quintessentially and universally American than tuning in every Sunday (and Monday, and Thursday… and sometimes Saturdays and holidays too) to watch the world’s most beautiful ballet of violence. It generates the most revenue of any sports league globally and sets new records for team valuations each year. But it wasn’t always this way. The history of the NFL mirrors America’s own development: scrappy small-town teams rode the successive growth waves of the automobile, TV, the Internet and social media to grow larger than the even the founders’ wildest dreams. Whether you watch football or not, the NFL is one incredible business story, and one that we’ve taken more lessons from over the years for Acquired itself than perhaps any other episode we’ve made. Note: This is a remastered release of our original January 2023 episode, updated to today's Acquired production standards. It also features a full hour+ followup section at the end covering the seismic shifts in the NFL’s business since the original episode’s release. Much has happened in those three years: Taylor Swift entered the league (via merger 🙂)…
Topics covered
- NFL
- American sports
- business history
- sports media
- team valuations
Keywords
- football
- sports gambling
- streaming
- private equity
- Taylor Swift
Mentioned in this episode
Products: Sierra Crusoe Sentry, NFL, streaming services, sports betting platforms
Books & works: Carve Outs, Origins of Football & the Forward Pass, The Founding of the NFL, Any Given Sunday, Monday Night Football
Places: America, San Francisco
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