It’s not easy to get two-thirds of the U.S. population to do the same thing at the same time. But that happened on Feb. 13, when 208 million Americans tuned in to Super Bowl LVI. The country’s most valuable sports league, the National Football League attracted 18.2 million fans to stadiums in 2021; its games represented 75 of the 100 most watched U.S. broadcasts—and the league just signed a new $113 billion TV contract. Football is just a game, but commissioner Roger Goodell’s NFL makes it a big one.
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