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The '''National Football League (NFL)''' is a professional sports league for [[American]] football in the [[United States]].  It is one of the four major sports leagues in the United States (the others being [[MLB]], [[NBA]], and [[NHL]], though the [[NFL]] has never had a franchise in Canada).  More so than other televised sports, the NFL encroaches on religious holidays such as [[Christmas]] and [[Thanksgiving]], when it reportedly drew 42 million viewers in 2022.<ref>https://frontofficesports.com/nfl-most-watched-regular-season-game/</ref>

The '''National Football League (NFL)''' is a professional sports league for [[American]] football in the [[United States]].  It is one of the four major sports leagues in the United States (the others being [[MLB]], [[NBA]], and [[NHL]], though the [[NFL]] has never had a franchise in Canada).  More so than other televised sports, the NFL encroaches on religious holidays such as [[Christmas]] and [[Thanksgiving]], when it reportedly drew 42 million viewers in 2022.<ref>https://frontofficesports.com/nfl-most-watched-regular-season-game/</ref>

The league would begin to supplant baseball as America's most popular spectator sport in 1958, when the then-NFL Championship Game between the then Baltimore Colts and the [[New York Giants]] was broadcast nationwide (though ironically not in New York City) and ended in a sudden-death overtime win by the Colts.  Today NFL franchises are a leading example of [[crony capitalism]],<ref>https://frontofficesports.com/anheuser-busch-ending-exclusive-super-bowl-deal-with-nfl/</ref> such that team owners rake in billions of dollars by milking taxpayers and promoting vices like [[beer]] and [[gambling]].  The NFL has $110 billion in media deals annually, and yet supports shockingly little [[charity]].  Far more people are harmed by the NFL than genuinely helped by it.

The league began to supplant baseball as America's most popular spectator sport in 1958, when the then-NFL Championship Game between the then Baltimore Colts and the [[New York Giants]] was broadcast nationwide (though ironically not in New York City) and ended in a sudden-death overtime win by the Colts.  Today NFL franchises are a leading example of [[crony capitalism]],<ref>https://frontofficesports.com/anheuser-busch-ending-exclusive-super-bowl-deal-with-nfl/</ref> such that team owners rake in billions of dollars by milking taxpayers and promoting vices like [[beer]] and [[gambling]].  The NFL has $110 billion in media deals annually, and yet supports shockingly little [[charity]].  Far more people are harmed by the NFL than genuinely helped by it.

However, the league is not without controversy: teams routinely fleece taxpayers to build new stadiums then keep nearly all the revenue earned (even from non-football events such as major concerts), the league itself promotes [[gambling]] (via both [[fantasy football]] and sports betting), and players routinely suffer serious injuries (concussions being the most common) which have life-altering effects and, in some cases, have led to deaths (not only the players but innocent parties, the case of murders allegedly committed by Aaron Hernandez among the most prominent).

However, the league is not without controversy: teams routinely fleece taxpayers to build new stadiums then keep nearly all the revenue earned (even from non-football events such as major concerts), the league itself promotes [[gambling]] (via both [[fantasy football]] and sports betting), and players routinely suffer serious injuries (concussions being the most common) which have life-altering effects and, in some cases, have led to deaths (not only the players but innocent parties, the case of murders allegedly committed by Aaron Hernandez among the most prominent).