How did you fall in love with the NFL? If you are like me, it was because you discovered America’s Game on one of America’s most famous inventions: television.
In the early 1960s, commissioner Pete Rozelle and NFL owners had a unique idea to make NFL football available in every home in America. Television made that possible for the first time. In 1950, approximately one in 10 living rooms had a television, according to . By 1960, eight in 10 homes had bought a TV set, making the television the best way to reach a sports-crazy nation. The thinking was—by making the NFL widely available—the country would love what they saw. And they did.
Since then, the NFL has turned that idea into our guiding star—serve current NFL fans and build new ones by reaching as many people as possible. Needless to say, today’s world is much different than it was in 1960. All of us are interacting with the world in new and ever more dynamic ways, not simply watching television. We are streaming, reading, texting, posting, creating and even tweeting and snapping—things Pete Rozelle never imagined. So, while the goal of reaching everyone remains the same, the way we do it is not.
Over the past decade, we have spent considerable time with our fans learning how they want to engage with the NFL and, working closely with our media and technology partners, have evolved our strategy by increasing not only the digital distribution of our games but also the myriad ways fans can follow and interact with our sport.
Much of that work culminated in our latest round of media deals, which we announced during the spring of 2021. Along with our media partners, we focused on a few priorities to make NFL football more available and better for fans. Let me share those priorities and how our fans will benefit now and into the future:
More and better footballMore digital streaming of NFL gamesMore innovation of the game broadcastsMore ways to experience the NFL
