NFL Super Bowl costs

DON’T CRY FOR ROGER GOODELL: The rationale behind the NFL’s purported pay-to-play Super Bowl scheme (see items below) has been detailed in The Wall Street Journal by Hannah Karp, who broke the news on Tuesday. The league was looking for a way to defray the halftime show’s production costs, which have grown to $10 million, a person familiar with the matter told the reporter. Until recently, the league’s deal with the halftime show’s title sponsor has covered these production costs, according to another source, but neither the NFL nor halftime-show sponsor PepsiCo would say whether this was still the case. The NFL has to compensate participating players (totaling an estimated $7.5m for the 2015 Super Bowl), and pay the league office staff, as well as covering game-production, costs surrounding other Super Bowl week events and travel expenses for the artists. On the other hand, The NFL’s net profit from the Super Bowl has generally accounted for about one-third of its gross revenue, which is said to be around $5 billion a year. (8/21a)