Ben Gilbert

And you could make an argument they were sort of under-earning for many years, but as the last thing that you actually watch on TV is these premium live sports, they are definitely commanding the revenues that they long deserved.

So why has viewership increased so much?

Or why have people been really wanting to pay attention to NFL games over the last couple of years?

What could have possibly changed that would make people pay attention?

Well, we said earlier in the episode that if you got money riding on a game, you are much more likely to care about it, even if you don't care about any of these teams gambling.

So the Supreme Court decision came down, I believe made it a state's rights issue of what type of gambling, sports gambling, to allow.

I think that's correct.

Many states made it legal.

And so in the episode, we said 46 million Americans bet on the NFL three years ago.

Estimates are that this year, that number has grown to 76 million Americans.

It's a giant win for driving viewership.

Versus the 46 from a couple of years ago.

Isn't it funny that if something is illegal, but people really want to do it, they do it.

But then if you make it legal, a lot more people do it.

Sort of like a lot of people use Napster, but then when you let people buy songs on iTunes, easy beats free, a hell of a lot more people started actually buying music than ever pirated it.

Yep.

Let's actually quantify it.

The estimates are that the NFL's gambling-related sponsorships are about $200 million a year between DraftKings, FanDuel, and Caesars.

And then there's these companies that they don't have a partnership with but obviously drive a ton of interest with PolyMarket and Kalshi, these prediction markets that have popped up.

So you might say like, oh, $200 million a year, that's nothing compared to the NFL's top line revenue.