Hosting the NFL Draft comes with hidden public safety costs

Watch the evolution of the NFL Draft

The NFL Draft evolved from a small group of team representatives huddled in a Philadelphia hotel ballroom in 1936 into a three-day primetime spectacle that regularly draws over 500,000 fans and 13 million TV viewers. Explore how it became the event it is today.

Hosting the World Cup requires massive investments in infrastructure

Since the 1990s, those costs have crept into the billions. Cities are able to sell the high price tag with promises of jobs and tourism dollars, but long-term studies showed the promises were often overstated.

How NFL teams mistake the values of their draft picks

The NFL draft is a highly anticipated event. Each spring football franchises take turns selecting roughly 250 players over seven rounds. Teams regularly trade draft picks to reach a certain player they expect to fall at their selection point, giving market analysts the ability to determine the value of those trades. This video explores the NFL draft market's inefficiency.

Watch a clip from the 1980 NFL Draft, the first to be broadcast on ESPN

ESPN broadcast the 1980 NFL Draft from the New York Sheraton Hotel's grand ballroom. This decision transformed the Draft from a closed, industry-only event into the nationally televised spectacle it is today, drawing over 13 million viewers annually.

Watch ten surprising moments from the NFL Draft

The NFL Draft often delivers as much drama off the field as on it. Watch this countdown of the top 10 wow moments in Draft history, featuring infamous prospect slides, a missed pick, and surprising trades and selections.

The NFL held its first draft of college players in 1936

The NFL draft is a three-day spectacle with wall-to-wall media coverage and months of speculation about who will go to number one. But it wasn't always like that. The early days of the draft were done on a chalkboard and created a need for professional scouting departments.

The NFL selects the Super Bowl host city years in advance and follows a list of criteria

Since 2018, the NFL has invited select cities to negotiate hosting rights rather than accept open bids, with owners voting based on stadium size, climate, hotels, transportation, security capacity, and infrastructure.

NFL Draft decisions are shaped by brain science, data, and office culture

Carnegie Mellon researchers say Draft-room choices are influenced by the "jackpot effect"—where higher stakes can impair performance—as well as by groupthink, the limits of data, and whether scouts feel safe speaking up.

College football weekends deliver major economic boosts to local communities

Home games draw tens of thousands of fans who spend on hotels, restaurants, and entertainment—injecting millions into local economies and making football Saturdays vital for many college towns’ businesses and seasonal revenue.

Learn how the NFL Draft works

Teams select players in a set order over seven rounds, with the weakest teams from the prior season picking first. Picks can be traded, and teams that lose free agents may receive additional compensatory picks.

The NFL makes most of its money through media licensing deals

The NFL, which reportedly earned more than $20B in 2023, generates its revenue through several key streams. The largest comes from media licensing deals, where networks and streaming platforms pay billions for the rights to broadcast games. Corporate sponsorships are another major contributor.

How much it costs to host the World Cup

The cost of hosting the world's biggest sporting event depends on a country's existing infrastructure. Learn how the World Cup in Qatar will impact the country's finances in this brief podcast.

Americans spent nearly $150B in sports-related bets in 2024

These bets ranged from who would win the World Series to what color clothes famous celebrities would wear to the Super Bowl. Experts believe the industry will continue to grow.

Hear how the Super Bowl went from a risky experiment to America's unofficial holiday

In this podcast episode, former Emmy award-winning ESPN producer Dennis Deninger traces the Super Bowl's unlikely rise from the AFL-NFL merger era to a national spectacle, explaining how it reshaped advertising, gambling, television, and American culture.

The general public cannot buy Super Bowl tickets at face value

The NFL controls every Super Bowl ticket, distributing none through a general public sale; after allotments to teams, players, sponsors, and the league, only about 11,600 tickets—roughly 16%—are available to fans at face value, mostly via team lotteries.

The number of cities bidding to host the Olympics has dropped in recent decades

Hosting the Olympics was once an honor and a way to bring people and prestige to a city. But in 2017, only two nations bid to host the 2024 Summer Olympic Games. This video walks through how every Olympics since 1960 has run over budget, and how the era of building dozens of new venues for the Games contributed to high cost overruns and corruption.

College football generates over $13B annually—but many programs run at a loss.

17 cities have hosted a Super Bowl, with Miami and New Orleans tied for the most

The resource details where each Super Bowl has been played, listing every host city alongside its stadium, and shows how a small group of warm-weather and domed locations came to dominate hosting duties over time.

Legal gambling on Super Bowl 60 is expected to reach $1.76B

Legal Super Bowl wagering has grown sharply over the past decade as US states legalized sports betting. In 2018, sports betting was only legal in Nevada and accounted for $158.5M.

David Stern reimagined the NBA Draft to make it more competitive

When David Stern took over as commissioner in 1984, he watched multiple teams lose on purpose to get the top pick in a stellar draft class. The next season, Stern changed the process to a lottery, where every nonplayoff team has an equal chance at the first pick.

100 years of NFL history in under four minutes

Founded in 1920 in Canton, Ohio, professional football has grown into the premiere sport in the US. Generating more than $20B annually, the NFL gained significant popularity after merging with the American Football League in 1970, a move which among other things established the Super Bowl.

The face value of a Super Bowl ticket rose 136% from 2016-26

At Levi’s Stadium, which first hosted the Super Bowl in 2016, face-value lower-bowl end zone seats increased from $1,800 to $4,250 by 2026, while price tiers expanded and the overall cost of attendance skyrocketed.

NFL stadiums are designed to maximize profit, not number of seats

Most stadiums are actually getting smaller as the cost of land rises. Owners have sought to increase returns by designing prestige suits and clubs (rather than just more general admission) and laying out the stadium to maximize customer purchases.

Comic-Con generates over $165M for the San Diego economy each year

San Diego’s community gets a significant boost from Comic‑Con, which draws around 135,000 attendees annually. It generates over $165M in regional spending—with more than $90M coming directly from visitors—and adds approximately $3.2M in city tax revenue.

1440: The National Football League

Explore the best resources we found on the NFL

The biggest controversies of the NFL

Some of the biggest controversies in NFL history didn’t just spark debate—they changed the game. From Spygate and Deflategate to concussion research and the league's ambivalent stance on it, these moments led to new rules, safety measures, and major policy shifts. Explore how each scandal shaped the league and its future.

A 30-second Super Bowl 2026 ad is expected to cost $8M

By 2026, a single 30-second Super Bowl ad is projected to cost $8M. Advertisements for Super Bowl I in 1967 cost from $37,500 to $42,500 for a 30-second spot.

The 2010 announcement that Russia and Qatar would host back-to-back men's World Cups eventually led to the resignation of FIFA's president.

MLB teams can travel with roughly 12,000 pounds of gear and luggage.

The NFL is the most valuable sports league in the world.

The NFL is so successful because it is perfectly suited for television

The predictable weekly cadence of football games ritualizes the experience of watching together, and their relative scarcity makes every game meaningful. With the stop-and-go play of the sport, there are predictable, repeating stoppages to allow broadcasters to sell lots of advertising inventory. The league sits in the sweet spot compared to MLB (many games) and NBA and soccer (continuous play with fewer ads). This Acquired episode distills fascinating insights into the NFL's business and history.

Some Super Bowl performers make less than $1K for the event

The NFL has a longstanding policy of not compensating Super Bowl Halftime show performers, with the idea that the true compensation for artists is the scale of the exposure to the artist’s music. Previous Super Bowl performers have made the union rate minimum, which is about $1K per day.

Attending Davos can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars

Access to Davos’ most exclusive events often comes at a steep price: Annual WEF dues can exceed $50K, premium membership can reach $500K, and attendance adds high costs for travel, lodging, security, and credentials.

NFL explained

The NFL is the premier professional American football league, founded in 1920 in Canton, Ohio. It consists of 32 teams playing an 18-week regular season from September to January, culminating in the Super Bowl championship in February. The NFL has grown into the world's most valuable sports league, generating nearly $20B in revenue in 2023, and with teams valued at $163B combined. Learn its history here.

Cities bore the brunt of the migrant surge in the 2020s

During the 2022-24 migration surge, cities such as New York, Chicago, and Denver faced shelter overcrowding, strained public services, and housing shortages—while the upfront costs fell almost entirely to states and cities.

Fantasy sports can also offer community

Fantasy leagues often carry over from year to year, allowing people to hang on to (or forge) connections with others. Matthew Berry, a fantasy football analyst for NBC Sports, argues, “the truth is it’s all about the people. It’s not the draft, it’s not the trash talk or the punishments … It’s the people who make the draft and the trash talk and the punishments and the winning what it is.”

Nashville's economy is benefitting from bachelorette parties at what some say is a cultural cost

In the past decade, Tennessee's capital has gone from a destination known for its music scene to the country's bachelor/bachelorette party hub. This podcast episode reveals that despite the financial benefits that bachelorette tourism brings, residents worry about how these specific tourists could threaten Nashville's reputation as a music city.

From 2014-25, US private sector data center investments have increased more than 25-fold

The annualized rate of US data center construction has ballooned from $1.6B to $41.1B, creating a market for data centers whose infrastructure costs and land, power, and transmission capacity demands rival those of offices and industrial facilities.

Mardi Gras has an annual economic impact of nearly $900M

Tulane University's Toni Weiss studies Mardi Gras' effect on New Orleans. Her study of the 2023 parade found that the event generated approximately $891M for the local economy. Weiss also found that the money that the city spent about $10M on the parade (for security, sanitation, and more) but earned a net fiscal benefit of $28M.

​​Some allege the NFL has shifted gameplay toward fantasy

Recent rule changes in the league have increased passing and point-scoring, which critics argue is motivated by a desire to appeal to fantasy-loving viewers who might be frustrated by slower, lower-scoring games.

US consumers spent $670M on snack food during Super Bowl week in 2024

According to Circana and NielsenIQ, Super Bowl week drove $670M in snack spending and 107 million pounds of food, with most fans watching at home, spending about $44 on food and drinks each.

The final player selected in the NFL Draft is called 'Mr. Irrelevant'

A tongue-in-cheek tradition started in 1976; the distinction has become a celebrated moment, complete with its own week of festivities in Newport Beach, California.

The hidden effects of March Madness

March Madness isn’t just a major sporting event—it’s also peak season for vasectomies. Urologists report a 50% increase during the tournament, as patients use recovery time as an excuse to watch nonstop basketball. Meanwhile, workplace distractions from bracket pools and game streaming are estimated to cost US businesses $17 billion.

Super Bowl LIX in 2025 made TV history with over 127 million viewers

Nielsen reported Super Bowl LIX drew an estimated 127.7 million viewers, the largest audience in Super Bowl history, with peak viewership near 138 million. This resource also includes viewership figures for every Super Bowl dating back to Super Bowl I.

How much does sports betting generate?

According to 2025 data, sports betting generated $2.7B in state tax revenue. That number has increased every year since the government began collecting data in 2021.

Ed Sabol's vision of NFL Films impacted how sports were filmed

When the NFL put out a bid to film the 1962 NFL Championship Game, Ed Sabol promised NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle his higher price tag would be worth it. Sabol’s style of fixed high shots, close-ups of players, and fans in the stands revolutionized how sporting events are filmed, influenced moviemakers like Ron Howard, and gave birth to NFL Films.

MLB pitchers were charged with benefiting from sports betting

In November 2025, two pitchers for the Cleveland Guardians were charged with coordinating with sports bettors to enrich themselves and others. In many instances, they shared the kinds of pitches they would throw at specific points in the game. Bettors then placed money on those actions.

In 2024, the league signed a 11-year deal with Disney, Amazon, and NBC Universal

The $2.2B deal was widely applauded in the media, but the Players Association questioned how the NBA arrived at the valuation and why the deal gives players less than 10% of total revenue compared to the NBA’s 50%.

As fantasy football grew more popular, the NFL began adapting

By the late 1990s, CBS, ESPN, and Yahoo had all launched their fantasy platforms, allowing the game to grow even more popular. By 2009, the NFL took note and began offering coverage that explicitly focused on fantasy metrics, including “RedZone,” a popular Sunday show that allows viewers to tune into the most crucial moments from around the league—or across their fantasy rosters.

Over time, the World Cup became a TV powerhouse, generating massive revenue from broadcast rights and ad placements.