The Economics of Modern Sports

The Washington Post reports:

The NFL earns nearly $4 billion each year in national television rights fees, which earns each team well in excess of $100 million a year. And Major League Baseball and the NBA earn more than $700 million a year from national television rights, of which teams receive more than $20 million apiece. By contrast, the NHL national rights fee contract with OLN amounts to about $2 million per team.

Measured another way, the NHL will earn about 3 percent of its revenue from national television this year. The NBA's and MLB's share of national television revenue is well into the double digits, and the NFL's television revenue is about 66 percent of the total league-wide earnings.

A good read.