Four Reasons to Watch the NFL Draft (Or Not)
Big Blue, Big Boos, Big Boys and some bonus business trivia
Welcome back to Club Sportico, where we break down the intersection of sports and money—with an extra bit of humor and opinion. Today, we share mixed feelings on a bizarre sporting event.
Every sport these days wages an endless war for audience attention. There are so many relatively new alternatives to putting a game on the TV in the evening—video games, TikTok, Netflix, online shopping—that leagues have to do everything in their power to get you to tune in.
Every sport, that is, except the NFL. The league’s exceptionalism is on display each April, when The Shield(tm) turns a paperwork procedure into must-see TV. An average of 12.1 million viewers watched Round One last year, beating out numerous recent Stanley Cup Final, World Series, and NBA Finals contests. Hundreds of thousands more descend on a different city each spring to experience the draft in person.
But is it really worth your time?
Here’s why we’ll be tuning in tonight (or maybe keeping just one eye on the ticker)…
P.S. Stick around to the bottom for some other sporting events to watch this weekend if you’re in the mood for actual sports instead.
Jacob: Betting on the boo birds.
The NFL Draft is full of bizarre traditions—the green room voyeurism, the instant grading, the frame-by-frame breakdowns of family members’ reactions—but one of the oddest is the night’s opening act: thousands upon thousands of football fans boo’ing NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.
As stated above, the NFL has never been more popular and yet the man running the show remains despised. I’m particularly curious if Green Bay fans, who’ve spent weeks talking about how welcoming they’ll be to outsiders, might be the ones to snap the sneering streak. The bit has run its course, no? You can even predict how long the boo’s are going to sustain themselves this year. PrizePicks has the line set at 10.5 seconds.1 I’ll take the under.
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Lev: So far, this decade has been big for offensive line and wide receiver prospects in the 1st round, but not so much for running backs and tight ends. If the mock drafts are accurate, we're in for another o-line fest. While watching Nuggets vs. Clippers and complaining about the game being on NBA TV (the NFL would never), I'll be tracking on my secondary screen which NFL positions are hot and which ones are not, while paying no attention to the actual names of the players.
Eben: This is an opportunity to trot out one of my favorite pieces of sports business trivia. When Sam Bradford was drafted No. 1 overall by the St. Louis Rams in 2010, he signed a six-year, $78 million contract with $50 million guaranteed. It remains the largest NFL rookie deal ever. The next year, when Cam Newton was taken No. 1 overall, he signed a four-year, $22 million deal. Last year’s top pick, Bears quarterback Caleb Williams, signed a four-year deal worth $39.5 million.
As salaries in all major U.S. sports—the NFL included—have grown dramatically since 2010, the salaries for NFL rookies have not. Why? In 2011, the NFL and the NFL players union agreed to a new “slotting system” for drafted players. Rookies no longer really negotiate their first contracts, they are instead compensated with a pre-set number in accordance with where they are picked in the draft. Everyone now gets a four-year deal, with teams granted a fifth-year option for players taken in the first round.
There are no incoming rookies in the NFLPA, and as a result, there’s no one to really advocate for rookies during NFL labor talks. As players fight for a larger share of league revenue, they also fought to shift more of that salary to veterans.2 The result of that dynamic was a new pay scale in 2011 that overnight shrank the No. 1 overall pick’s pay by 72%!
Given the historical growth of the NFL’s salary cap, and assuming the rookie pay scale increases in step, it appears the next NFL rookie to eclipse $78 million on his first contract will be in 2035. That athlete might currently be 10 years old.
Matt: The next chapter of Giants fandom misery business is already written: Its February 2029, Abdul Carter has shattered Michael Strahan’s sack record with 30.5 sacks for the Giants, comes in second place in MVP voting behind Saquan Barkley’s year 32 season in which he scored 39 total touchdowns for the Birds. I'm jolted awake by Alexa reading an Adam Schefter tweet notification on full volume in my apartment at 4am, "Abdul Carter to the Eagles, 8-years, $500 million. 'I just want to be closer to Happy Valley and my boy Saquon,' says Carter". I cry myself back to sleep, wondering who New York will select with their next top-3 draft pick.
Looking for something else to watch?
How about…
Friday night: Paul Skenes takes on the Los Angeles Dodgers (10:10 PM, MLB Network). Here’s what happened when the pitching phenom faced Shohei Ohtani last year…
Every night: The NHL playoffs! The vibes are great everywhere, but no one does the white out like the NHL’s smallest (and coldest) market 👇
Club Sportico is a community organized by Sportico, a digital media company launched in 2020 to cover the business side of sports. You can read breaking news, smart analysis, and in-depth features from Eben, Jacob and their colleagues at Sportico.com, and listen to the Sporticast podcast wherever you get your audio. Contact us at club@sportico.com.
https://www.prizepicks.com/playbook-article/make-free-nfl-draft-predictions-win-500k
Owners, it should be noted, are also more than happy to limit the salary paid to unproven prospects.
Carter to eagles is 100% happening in a few years