Even The Small-Market Packers Can Make Huge Cash Profits In Today’s NFL—In 2021, $100 Million

Don’t let anyone tell you that small-market NFL teams can’t make big money. The league’s salary-cap system, in which player compensation is limited to 48% of revenue, makes it possible that even the smallest of the small can be immensely profitable.

On Friday, the Green Bay Packers reported a record operating profit of $78 million for the 2021 season on revenue of $579 million. The prior season, the team had an operating loss of $39 million as no fans attended games at Lambeau Field because of the pandemic.

Nice recovery. But that $78 million is even better than it looks because it includes noncash expenses like depreciation and amortization, which can significantly impact operating income. The team’s cash profits—known as Ebitda, or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization—were likely much higher. Ebitda gives a better sense of the ability of a team, or any business, to pay its bills. It’s the number potential buyers of a business look at, rather than operating income.

Go back to 2017, for example. For that season, the team reported profit from operations of $65 million, a 9.7% decrease from a record $75 million the year before. Remarking on those results, team president Mark Murphy said the decrease was in part due to depreciation related to more than $450 million in investments in Lambeau Field and the surrounding Titletown District.

All NFL teams, of course, have depreciation and amortization expenses. The only question is the total of such charges, which include things like writing down stadium expenditures and player contracts. Recall when Deadspin got its hands on the Carolina Panthers’ financial statements several years ago. For 2011 and 2012, the Panthers booked depreciation and amortization expenses of $29.7 million and $59.5 million, respectively.

Indeed, for that 2017 season, we estimated the Packers had non-cash expenses of $26 million, giving the team Ebitda of $91 million. The Packers have yet to make their 2022 annual report publicly available, so we don’t know if Murphy will comment on non-cash expenses (the team doesn’t break down depreciation and amortization on its income statement). But sports bankers say that the Packers likely had non-cash expenses of at least $20 million, which would push their Ebitda to $100 million or more.

By our calculations, even with the fan-free 2020 season, the Packers have generated a total of $255 million in Ebitda the past five seasons. Not bad for the league’s smallest market.