Ben Gilbert

The NFL has built basically no technology, basically no distribution, and basically no direct relationship with the audience.

And they'll still be fine.

And they'll still be fine.

They outsourced all the hard parts.

Is that interesting that people don't want to follow NFL stars the way they want to follow NBA stars on social media?

And the NFL is control the message.

Yep.

While we're contrasting leagues, there's this pretty interesting thing that I've been thinking about, which is this cooperative capitalist communism thing that the NFL did.

It was really good at creating parity among teams to be the most competitive, but let's take it to the level of the players.

Interestingly enough, the NFL has been the best of any of the leagues at creating the narrowest band of player compensation in the same philosophy that they applied to the league competition.

Now, of course, it is nowhere near equal pay among players.

And like, yes, it's a bummer that while Aaron Rodgers makes $50 million a year, there's a long tail of players that only play one to three years making league minimum and then turn out, which I think is mid single digit millions of lifetime compensation from football.

So still.

That's good money.

Yeah.

Lifetime, though?

So players are definitely variably rewarded based on their value to any given team.

But the NBA and the MLB are way less equal than the NFL.

The superstars in the NBA, like LeBron James, including sponsorships, makes $127 million a year.

There is no one in the sport of football that comes close.