According to reporting from John Ourand of Puck, NFL executives were “irritated” after NBC Sports agreed to an 11-year, $27 billion media rights deal with the NBA that pays the league roughly $2.4 billion annually, a figure that exceeds the approximately $2 billion per year NBC pays for Sunday Night Football and its broader NFL package.
That disparity, while eye-opening on its surface, drew strong reaction in Dallas during the Shan & RJ Show on 105.3 The Fan, where host RJ Choppy dismissed the idea that the NFL should feel slighted by the arrangement.
“This is insane for the NFL to even be upset about this,” Choppy said. “The NFL gives NBC 18 games a year. The NBA gives NBC 100 games a year. Of course, they’re paying more.”
Choppy framed the debate as a matter of math and inventory, not a power struggle between two billion-dollar properties. While the NFL produces massive ratings, NBC’s football schedule centers on one weekly prime-time window. It also includes a limited number of postseason games. By contrast, the NBA package delivers year-round programming across broadcast and Peacock. That includes regular-season games, playoff matchups, and conference finals. The added volume creates far more streaming inventory for the network to monetize.
To illustrate his point, Choppy compared the leagues’ output to workplace compensation.
“This is like working one day a week at your job and being upset that the person who works 50 hours a week, five days a week, makes more money than you,” he said. “How are you upset about that? You work one day a week? Why would you be upset?”
Co-host Bobby Belt acknowledged the logic behind Choppy’s volume argument but suggested the NFL’s reported frustration may stem less from economics and more from optics. The league has long positioned itself as the most powerful property in American sports, consistently dominating television ratings and setting benchmarks for rights fees.
“The NFL, they want you to feel their power. They want you to feel their influence. They want to be the top dog in every respect,” Belt said. “And so I think they just feel like it’s just a greed factor, grass is greener. That’s all it is.”
The timing of the reported irritation adds intrigue. The NFL is preparing to reopen portions of its existing media agreements, a process that could reshape partnerships with traditional broadcasters such as NBC while potentially expanding relationships with streaming-first companies like Amazon, Apple and YouTube.
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