If the National Football League (NFL) had a stock, it would probably be a big long-term winner. The NFL is, by far, the world's most profitable professional sports league. Viewership of NFL games has increased significantly over the decades, and Americans overwhelmingly name football as their favorite professional sport to watch on TV.
Moreover, the NFL has a reputation for being an early and rapid adopter of technology to enhance the fan experience, improve teams' profitability, and increase league efficiency.
In fiscal year 2024 (ended March 31, 2025), the NFL's total revenue exceeded $23 billion. Each of the league's 32 teams reportedly received a $416 million distribution from the league's national media, sponsorship, and licensing revenue, up 8.9% from the prior year.
Given this weekend is the NFL's divisional round of the playoffs, I thought it would be fun and timely to write about top stock buys with ties to the NFL. (Saturday's two games and the first Sunday game are over as this article is about to publish. Sunday's Los Angeles Rams vs Chicago Bears game started at 6:30 p.m. ET.)
Image source: Getty Images.
2 top tech stocks to buy now
| Company | Market Cap | Forward P/E Ratio | Wall Street's Annualized 5-Year EPS Growth Estimate | 1-Year Stock Return | 10-Year Stock Return |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon (AMZN 1.52%) | $2.6 trillion | 29.5 | 20.6% | 8.4% | 739% |
| Nvidia (NVDA 1.53%) | $4.5 trillion | 24.3 | 49.3% | 39.4% |
28,097% (not a typo!) |
| S&P 500 Index | -- | -- | -- | 18.4% | 339% |
Data sources: Yahoo! Finance, finviz.com, and YCharts. P/E = price to earnings. EPS = earnings per share. YTD = year to date. Data to Jan. 16, 2026.
Amazon: The NFL's primary cloud computing partner and exclusive streamer of "Thursday Night Football"
Amazon is best known among the public as the world's largest e-commerce company. But the company's cloud computing service, Amazon Web Services (AWS), is its segment that drives its profitability.
Since 2017, AWS -- the world's largest cloud computing service -- has been the NFL's primary cloud partner. Using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, AWS analyzes massive amounts of player and football tracking data to deliver real-time game stats and insights to fans, teams, and broadcasters via the NFL's "Next Gen Stats." AWS also analyzes data to help the league and teams prevent player injuries.
In 2024, the NFL and AWS expanded their partnership, which included generative AI capabilities. Generative AI, which greatly expanded AI's capabilities, came to the attention of business owners and consumers when OpenAI launched its extremely popular generative AI-powered chatbot, ChatGPT, in late 2022.
NASDAQ: AMZN
Key Data Points
Amazon has another noteworthy tie to the NFL. In 2022, Amazon began an 11-year deal with the NFL, granting Amazon Prime Video exclusive streaming rights to the NFL's "Thursday Night Football" ("TNF"). This deal made Amazon Prime Video the first streamer to secure exclusive media rights to NFL games.
Are Amazon's NFL ties alone enough of a reason to buy Amazon stock? Of course not. But it seems telling that the tech-savvy NFL could use one of several major cloud computing companies – the top three also include Alphabet's Google Cloud and Microsoft's Azure – and has stayed with Amazon since the get-go.
Moreover, Amazon's shelling out some huge bucks -- reportedly about $1 billion per year -- to acquire the exclusive streaming rights to "TNF" demonstrates its commitment to making its Prime paid-subscription membership appealing and "sticky."
Nvidia: Various AI, virtual reality (VR), and augmented reality (AR) ties with the NFL
Nvidia's graphics processing units (GPUs) are the dominant chips for AI training and inference (or application deployment), including in data centers operated by cloud computing companies. As such, Nvidia's tech is widely used by the NFL via cloud computing services, as discussed above.
Beyond that, various NFL teams have also used Nvidia's GPUs for virtual reality (VR) applications. In 2016, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers used Nvidia tech to give fans and potential sponsors VR tours of its new stadium, which was being renovated. Specifically, Nvidia's programming model, CUDA, and its then-new GeForce GTX 1080 GPU were used. Here's what an Nvidia blog had to say about this unique experience:
While the new Raymond James Stadium is under construction, current and prospective ticket holders can use a virtual reality headset to experience the new stadium before it opens in September. The realistic preview is also valuable in attracting potential sponsors by helping executives visualize their company's logo inside the stadium.
NASDAQ: NVDA
Key Data Points
Various NFL teams are using VR, often with Nvidia tech, to train players, particularly quarterbacks. VR provides realistic virtual simulations of scenarios they could encounter during games.
Moreover, many, if not most, broadcasters also use Nvidia tech for augmented reality (AR) and other applications to enhance the viewing experience.
Are Nvidia's NFL ties alone enough of a reason to buy Nvidia stock? As with my answer for Amazon, of course not. However, Nvidia's NFL ties -- and there are many more than I covered -- demonstrate how widely adopted Nvidia tech is and how pervasive it is all around us.
