History of the NFL

01 — NFL timeline, 1920 to November 2026

Compiled 2026-11-05. Facts rest on the sources linked in each section; [unconfirmed] marks anything seen only in a search snippet or a single weak source.

1. Founding era (1920–1945)

2. Post-war growth and the rival leagues (1946–1969)

3. The merged league and the TV era (1970–1989)

4. Free agency, the salary cap and the first international push (1990–2006)

5. The international and streaming era (2007–2026)

6. League size over time

No expansion since 2002. Growth has instead come from relocations to bigger markets (LA, Las Vegas) and international games.

Sources

Answered: Wikipedia articles (NFL, History of the NFL, Commissioner, AFL–NFL merger, American Bowl, franchise moves, NFL Europe, Rooney Rule, USFL, Radovich, SBA, strike and lockout articles, Super Bowl, Thursday Night Football, Sunday Ticket, International Series, Doping in American football); NFL.com and Yahoo Sports on the 1976 Tokyo game; Japan Times (2015); NFL media releases (2026 schedule, Global Markets Program); ESPN; CNBC; UC Law Review; Awful Announcing; Quartz; NFL Operations.

Came up empty: The Wikipedia "Expansion of the National Football League" page doesn't exist (404), so expansion years come from the team table on the main NFL article. Wikipedia rate limits (429) slowed fetches but didn't block any article.

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02 — Business and media

Compiled 2026-11-05. [unconfirmed] = search snippet only or a single weak source.

1. How the league is organised

• Structure: 32 privately owned clubs (the Green Bay Packers are fan-owned; a share cost $300 in the 2026 report) plus a league office that negotiates national media, sponsorship and licensing. Owners vote on rules, relocation and new owners. Sources: Yahoo Sports, Packers 2026, Wikipedia: NFL.
• Long-term ownership: 23 of 32 teams have had the same owner or family for 20 years or more. Private-equity funds may hold minority stakes since 2024. Source: Quartz, Forbes 2026 valuations.
• Tax status: the league office was a 501(c)(6) non-profit trade association until it gave up the status in 2015. Goodell called it a "distraction", and the change cost about $10M a year in tax. The clubs were always taxable. Source: Wikipedia NFL.
• Antitrust footing: the 1961 Sports Broadcasting Act lets the clubs sell TV rights as one package. American Needle (2010) held that clubs are separate businesses for antitrust purposes. See 03, Economics and labor.

2. Revenue sharing

National money (TV, national sponsorship, licensing) is split equally among the 32 clubs. That covers international game income too, since it flows to the league.

Total league revenue is in 03, Economics and labor.

3. TV and media deals by era

Notes: - Owners can opt out of the current deals after the 2029 season (Sportico; Quartz says after 2029/2030). The next round of talks is the biggest money event on the horizon. - Media is close to half of all league earnings (Yahoo Sports, Aug 2026). Sportico puts TV at about $12B a year. - Viewership: Super Bowl LIX (Feb 2025) holds the US record at 127.7M average viewers (Wikipedia: Super Bowl). Amazon's TNF averaged 15.3M in 2025, its record (Wikipedia: TNF). - Legal pressure on the SBA: in June 2024 a jury awarded $4.6B (trebled to over $14B) in the Sunday Ticket class action. The judge set the verdict aside and it is on appeal. A House Judiciary staff report (June 2026) calls the SBA a "special-interest antitrust exemption". Source: House SBA report.

4. Streaming milestones

5. Sponsorship and advertising

6. Team values over time

Top 10 by Forbes, 2026 (Quartz): Cowboys $17B, Rams $13.5B, Giants $12B, Patriots $10.6B, 49ers $10.5B, Dolphins $10.4B, Jets $10.35B, Raiders $10.3B, Eagles $10.25B, Falcons $10.1B. The average team is worth 13.4× revenue (8.3× in 2022).

7. Stadium financing

• Most NFL stadiums since the 1990s used a mix of public money (local taxes, bonds) and private money. The league also lends to clubs under its G-4 (later G-5) stadium loan programme. [unconfirmed: not opened in this research; check before using numbers]
• Relocations follow stadium deals: Rams to LA (2016, privately financed SoFi Stadium), Chargers to LA (2017), Raiders to Las Vegas (2020, Allegiant Stadium with public hotel-tax funding). Source for the moves: Wikipedia: franchise moves. The financing details are [unconfirmed].
• Gap: no public-subsidy totals were collected.

8. International business

8a. Games abroad

62 regular-season games had been played abroad by the 2026 release. No regular-season game has been played in Asia.

8b. American Bowls in Japan

Source: Wikipedia: American Bowl table. The 2005 Tokyo Dome game is also confirmed by the Japan Times (2015). In 2015 the Japan Times wrote that fans had gone a decade without a game. From 1977 to 1993 Tokyo also hosted a US college regular-season game, the Mirage Bowl / Coca-Cola Classic (Wikipedia).

8c. Global Markets Program (GMP)

• Launched in 2022. Gives clubs marketing rights in foreign markets. All 32 clubs and 22 markets take part in 2026, and Italy was added that year. Source: NFL GMP release, 2026.
• Japan is assigned to one club only, the Los Angeles Rams. The Rams also hold Australia, China, South Korea, Mexico, New Zealand and the UAE. Big European markets such as Germany and the UK each have many clubs. Same source.
• The league's head of international is Gerrit Meier. League offices abroad include Mexico (opened 1998) and Germany (Düsseldorf, 2023) (Wikipedia: History of the NFL).

8d. NFL Europe

Sources

Answered: Sportico (two 2026 pieces), Yahoo Sports (Packers; Europe), Quartz (Forbes 2026), House Judiciary SBA staff report (PDF), Awful Announcing, UPI, CNBC, ESPN, Wikipedia (NFL, Sunday Ticket, TNF, Super Bowl, Super Bowl advertising, Forbes list, American Bowl, NFL Europe, International Series, franchise moves, Coca-Cola Classic), NFL media releases, NFL.com, Japan Times, DW, UC Law Review.

Came up empty or partial: - Forbes and S&P Global pages returned 403 to the local scraper and to plain requests. Forbes figures come via Quartz's write-up. Cloud tools were not used. - Statista gave only snippet-level figures behind its paywall. - No stadium-subsidy or G-4 loan figures were collected. - The Seahawks sale price was seen only in search snippets.

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03 — Economics and labor

Compiled 2026-11-05. [unconfirmed] = search snippet only or a single weak source.

1. League revenue over time

Revenue roughly tripled from 2010 to 2025. Per-team national money went from $99.9M (2010) to more than $450M (2025). Sources: Wikipedia NFL; Sportico, July 2026.

Revenue mix, 2025 (Sportico): TV about $12B a year; tickets and suites $4.35B (19% of team revenue); national distribution about 62% of an average team's revenue.

2. Salary cap by year

The cap began in 1994 as part of the 1993 CBA. Main source: NFL Football Operations. Second source: Spotrac. Where they differ, both are shown.

• The cap grew 8.7× from 1994 to 2026.
• In the 2010 uncapped year, teams that front-loaded deals were later penalised: Cowboys $10M, Redskins $36M (Wikipedia: Salary cap).
• 2020 CBA: the COVID revenue loss was spread over four seasons, with a $175M cap floor for 2021 (Wikipedia: 1982 NFL strike, which covers later labor history).

3. Collective bargaining, strikes and lockouts

• Union leaders: Gene Upshaw (executive director from 1983), DeMaurice Smith (from 2009), then Lloyd Howell. The current executive director after Howell is [unconfirmed].
• During the 2011 lockout the TV networks still paid over $4B (Wikipedia: 2011 lockout).

4. Free agency

5. Antitrust history

Sources

Answered: NFL Football Operations (cap), Spotrac (cap check), Sportico (two pieces), the House Judiciary SBA report, Statista (headline only), NFL.com (2020 term sheet) and Wikipedia (NFLPA, 1982 and 1987 strikes, 2011 lockout, Rozelle Rule, Free agent, Freeman McNeil, Reggie White, Radovich, SBA, USFL, American Needle, franchise moves, Salary cap).

Came up empty: - The Wikipedia "Mackey v. National Football League" and "Joe Carr" pages came back blank from the API, so Mackey facts come from the NFLPA article. - S&P Global's revenue page was blocked (403). - A year-by-year league revenue series wasn't available free (Statista is paywalled).

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04 — Player salaries, 1920s to 2026

Compiled 2026-11-05. [unconfirmed] = search snippet only or a single weak source. [derived] = my arithmetic from a cited source.

1. Average pay by decade

Older figures come from different series that don't fully agree. Read them as orders of magnitude, not exact numbers.

Average salary, 1970–1999 (NFLPA series reported by AP in 2000)

Source: AP via News On 6.

Conflict: Expensivity gives lower 1970s numbers: 1974 $27,500 (or $36,444 with bonuses), 1977 $55,000, 1978 $62,535. The AP/NFLPA series probably counts differently (it may include bonuses or use another roster base). The trend is the same in both. This site uses the AP series for consistency.

2026 pay distribution (all active contracts)

Source: nflverse historical_contracts data from Over The Cap, updated 2026-11-05 (nflverse release). [derived] from 2,545 active contracts, using average per year (APY).

The mean is more than three times the median. NFL pay is very top-heavy because most rosters are filled at or near the minimum.

2. Minimum salary

Practice-squad players earn far less: $10.5K a week in 2020 under the term sheet.

3. Record contracts (highest average per year when signed)

Source: nflverse/Over The Cap contract history [derived: largest APY signed in each year that set a new high]. The 2026 Mahomes deal was also reported by ESPN and NFL.com (June 10, 2026) per search results.

The record APY rose about 16× from 1991 to 2026. Over 1994–2026 it grew in step with the salary cap.

Highest-paid players, 2026 (APY)

Source: nflverse/OTC [derived]; position benchmarks from Spotrac 2025.

Spotrac 2025 position tops: QB Prescott $60M, Edge Parsons $46.5M, WR Ja'Marr Chase $40.25M, RB Saquon Barkley $20.6M.

4. Guaranteed money

• Most NFL contracts are not fully guaranteed, unlike the NBA and MLB. Signing bonuses and some salary are guaranteed; the rest can be cut.
• Largest fully guaranteed deal: Deshaun Watson, $230M (2022), per nflverse/OTC "guaranteed at signing". Quartz reports Prescott's total guarantee at $231M (Quartz; note that this Quartz page looks out of date because it omits the 2026 Mahomes deal).

5. Rookie wage scale

• Before 2011, top draft picks could out-earn veterans (for example, Sam Bradford's 2010 rookie deal, about $50M guaranteed [unconfirmed]).
• The 2011 CBA set a rookie scale: four-year deals (five-year option for first-rounders) with pay fixed by draft slot. It moved money from rookies to veterans and retired players. Source: Wikipedia: 2011 lockout.

6. Players' share of revenue

Benefits on top of salary cost over $70M per club in 2025 (Sportico, July 2026).

Sources

Answered: - AP/NFLPA via News On 6, Expensivity, the House SBA report, the NFL.com 2020 term sheet, Wikipedia (NFLPA, 2011 lockout, 1982 strike, History of the NFL), Spotrac, Quartz and Sportico. - nflverse contracts parquet (Over The Cap data), analysed locally.

Came up empty or weak: - No clean NFL median-salary series by decade exists in free sources. Medians are only available for 2026 (nflverse); pre-2026 medians are not covered. - Quartz's 2026 QB list is out of date. - The nflverse season_history cash-paid field double-counts across contracts, so it was not used. - The Spotrac and careertrend salary-history pages were too noisy or blocked (403).

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05 — Policy and governance

Compiled 2026-11-05. [unconfirmed] = search snippet only or a single weak source.

1. Commissioners and presidents

Main source: Wikipedia: Commissioner of the NFL.

2. Personal conduct policy

Integrity cases involving teams

3. Drug and PED policy

At least 258 PED suspensions were issued from 1987 to 2022 [unconfirmed: Grokipedia snippet].

4. Rooney Rule (diversity in hiring)

5. Gambling

The league opposed legal betting for decades, then made betting a major sponsor category after 2018.

6. National anthem protests (US domestic; background only)

7. Safety rule changes (summary; detail in 06)

• 2009: return-to-play rule after concussions. 2013: independent neurologists on sidelines. Later: helmet-contact (lowering the head) rule, defenceless-player protections, kickoff redesigns (2023–2025 "dynamic kickoff") and Guardian Caps in practice (2022). Sources: Wikipedia: Concussions in American football, NFL 2025 injury data.

8. Tax-exempt status

• The league office was a 501(c)(6) trade association. It gave the status up in 2015 after criticism in Congress, and Goodell called the issue a "distraction". The change cost about $10M a year. The clubs had always paid tax. Source: Wikipedia: NFL.

9. Political relationships (US; background only)

Giving is split between both parties. The league's federal interests are antitrust (the SBA), the tax code, betting law and broadcasting.

Sources

Answered: Wikipedia (Commissioner, NFL, conduct policy, Ray Rice, Deflategate, Doping in American football, Rooney Rule, Brian Flores, Hornung, Karras, anthem protests, Kaepernick, Concussions, franchise moves), UC Law Review, OpenSecrets (org summary), NFL.com (2020 term sheet, 2025 injury data), the House SBA report.

Came up empty or partial: - The OpenSecrets "Blitzing Washington" article body didn't load. The org summary page did load through firecrawl-local after a plain request was blocked (403). - No penalty sentence was extracted from the Spygate article. - The Watson suspension length, the six-game baseline, the 2023 gambling suspensions and HGH testing in 2014 were seen only in snippets. - The "Personal conduct policy" Wikipedia title was a blank redirect; the "NFL player conduct policy" article was used instead.

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06 — Health and safety

Compiled 2026-11-05. [unconfirmed] = search snippet only or a single weak source.

1. The concussion crisis: timeline

2. CTE research results (Boston University brain bank)

These are donated brains, often from families who already suspected disease, so they don't measure how common CTE is across all players. Wikipedia: CTE explains that diagnosis is only possible after death.

3. Concussion settlement: current figures

Source: NFL Concussion Settlement official site, as of Nov 2, 2026.

Second source: ESPN (2021) put payouts at about $800M by June 2021, so awards roughly doubled in five years.

4. Equipment and rule changes

The 2025 season's total concussion count wasn't in the pages opened.

5. Retired players' benefits and health studies

• Pensions: the 2020 CBA cut the vesting requirement to 3 credited seasons and raised benefits for older retirees (2020 CBA term sheet). Detailed pension amounts are [not collected].
• Player benefits cost over $70M per club in 2025 (Sportico).
• Disability: Webster's case is the best-known example. The retirement board paid his estate about $1.8M after a court fight (Mike Webster article).
• Studies: the Harvard Football Players Health Study (funded through the NFLPA) has published reports on drugs, care and more; its PDF chapter was seen in search results but not opened. The settlement's Baseline Assessment Program has run 17,542 exams.
• ALS: former Saints player Steve Gleason (diagnosed 2011) received the Congressional Gold Medal in 2019 (Wikipedia: Steve Gleason).

Sources

Answered: Wikipedia (Concussions in American football, CTE, Omalu, Webster, Gleason), the NFL Concussion Settlement site, ESPN (race-norming; Guardian Caps 2024), PubMed (Guardian Cap study, via the E-utilities API), the NFL.com 2025 injury report, the NFL.com 2020 term sheet, Sportico.

Came up empty: - No 2025 season concussion total was found in the opened pages. - The Harvard Football Players Health Study was not opened. - Pension dollar amounts were not collected. - The Wikipedia "Guardian Cap" article added nothing beyond the ESPN and PubMed sources.

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07 — Military and government

Compiled 2026-11-05. [unconfirmed] = search snippet only or a single weak source.

Note: the NFL's patriotic and military ties are central to its US identity, but they don't translate abroad. The league's own former CMO warned that this patriotism can come across as "political in nature" overseas (Yahoo Sports, Aug 2026).

1. Players in wartime

Teams were short of players during WWII, and some merged for a season or two (the Steelers and Eagles became the "Steagles" in 1943) [merger detail unconfirmed in opened sources].

2. Patriotic presentation

• Slate (2009) dates the military framing of the game to Rozelle, who made "a conscious effort" to tie the Super Bowl to patriotism. Military flyovers began at Super Bowl II, patriotic halftime shows at Super Bowl III, and the peaks came around the 1991 Gulf War and 2002 after 9/11. Source: Slate.

3. "Paid patriotism" (McCain–Flake report, 2015)

Source: Military.com, Nov 5, 2015.

The report argued that tributes fans took as voluntary had in some cases been paid for.

4. Salute to Service

• Started in 2011. Every November, teams wear camouflage gear and run military tributes. Over $80M raised for military charities: the Bob Woodruff Foundation, Pat Tillman Foundation, TAPS, USO and Wounded Warrior Project. Source: NFL.com Salute to Service.

5. Presidents and Congress

Sources

Answered: NFL.com (WWII letters; Salute to Service), the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Slate, Military.com, Wikipedia (Tillman, History of the NFL, SBA, Concussions, NFL, anthem protests, Rooney Rule), the House SBA report, OpenSecrets, Yahoo Sports.

Came up empty: - The USA Today story on the 2016 refund returned 402 (paywall). The refund figure rests on search snippets. - The Politico page on the paid-patriotism totals returned 403. - No source was opened for the WWII "Steagles" merger.

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08 — Culture and society

Compiled 2026-11-05. [unconfirmed] = search snippet only or a single weak source.

1. Integration

Asian and Asian-American players

• First Asian-American players: Walter Achiu (1927) and Arthur Matsu (1928), per History of the NFL.
• Japanese-born and Japanese-American NFL players since then are covered on this site's Japan page (06, Military and US ties), not here.

2. Football's place in US culture

The polls ask different questions (favourite sport vs favourite to watch vs most popular), so the 30–52% range reflects wording, not a contradiction. Every series has football first by a wide margin.

Cultural institutions

3. Fan demographics

• The opened sources give no age, gender or ethnicity breakdown of fans. This is a gap. The often-quoted figure that women are about 45–47% of NFL fans is [unconfirmed: not found in opened sources].
• International fan bases from the league's own figures: over 14M fans in France; over 151,000 ticket registrations for the 2026 Melbourne game (Yahoo Sports, Aug 2026).

4. Women in the game

Source: Wikipedia: Women in American football, plus the women's milestones noted in History of the NFL.

Sources

Answered: Wikipedia (History of the NFL, Fritz Pollard, Kenny Washington, Marion Motley, Rooney Rule, Sports in the United States, Super Bowl, NFL, NFL Films, Heidi Game, Super Bowl advertising, Women in American football), Yahoo Sports, Sportico, Awful Announcing.

Came up empty: - Fan demographic data (age, gender, ethnicity) wasn't found in free, openable sources; Nielsen and NFL data are proprietary. - The Wikipedia "Women in American football" text had no fan-share figure.

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09 — Viewership and fans

Compiled 2026-11-05. [unconfirmed] = search snippet only or a single weak source. [derived] = my arithmetic from a cited source.

Measurement note: from the 2025 season Nielsen counts more out-of-home and streaming viewing ("Big Data + Panel"). That helped the 2025 records, so recent numbers are not fully comparable with older years (Sportico, Jan 2026). The NFL complained to Nielsen about further changes in August 2026 [unconfirmed: Yahoo snippet].

1. US TV audiences by era

2025 season by package

NFL games were 89 of the top 100 US telecasts from the start of the 2025 season [TV Technology snippet].

2. Super Bowl audiences, I (1967) to LX (2026)

Source for every row: Wikipedia: Super Bowl television ratings, which uses Nielsen data. Viewers are average US viewers in millions on the main network(s). HH = households rating. Ad = average 30-second ad, nominal $.

• Super Bowl LX's second quarter peaked at 137.8M, the highest peak in US TV history. Bad Bunny's halftime show averaged 128.2M (Nielsen, Feb 2026).
• Spanish-language Super Bowl audiences rose from 0.56M (Fox Deportes, 2014) to 3.3M (Telemundo, 2026) (Super Bowl TV ratings).
• Canada: 3.0M (1998) to 10.0M (2024), 8.5M in 2025 (same source).
• Super Bowl LIX (2025) was the most-watched US broadcast of any kind (Wikipedia: Super Bowl).

3. Streaming milestones

The six other 2025 international games averaged 6.2M on NFL Network [snippet: The Athletic].

4. Game attendance over time

Pro Football Reference blocks direct requests, so its season attendance pages were read through the Internet Archive (Wayback CDX, one snapshot per year). League totals:

• The 1960, 1970, 1980 and 1990 PFR snapshots had no attendance table, so those decades only have Rozelle-era totals.
• The NFL has the highest average attendance of any pro league in the world: 67,591 on Wikipedia's count, which differs from the per-game figures above.
• The 1946–49 AAFC drew about as well as the NFL [snippet: Professional Football Researchers forum].

5. Polls: football's place as a favourite sport

Gallup, "favourite sport to watch" (Gallup, Sept 2026; 1972 numbers from SBJ, Sept 2026):

• Football has been first in all 23 Gallup readings since 1972, averaging 38% in season and 32% out of season.
• Age gap (2026): 20% of 18–34-year-olds pick football, against 30% of 35–54 and 38% of 55+. 23% of young adults have no favourite sport.
• Income (2026): upper-income 37%, middle 32%, lower 25%.
• Harris Poll: pro football became America's favourite sport in 1965, and stood at 30% in 2008 (History of the NFL).

Fan counts: estimates vary with definitions. One commercial estimate puts US NFL fans at 143.8M with 45.1% women [unconfirmed: Rascasse snippet]. S&P Kagan (Q1 2024) found 48% of US internet adults watch NFL games [snippet].

6. Who watches: demographics

• Women: about 44% of NFL TV viewers (Scarborough above). The common "47% of fans are women" line was not found in an opened source.
• Hispanic / Latino fans: the NFL's fastest-growing US fan group (NPR, Dec 2024). Spanish-language Super Bowl viewing reached 3.3M in 2026 (table above). Under 15% of US NFL fans are Black [snippet: Statista].
• Gen Z / young adults: the weak spot. Only 20% of 18–34s name football their favourite (Gallup 2026). Streaming audiences are younger (median 43). Netflix, YouTube creators (MrBeast was on the 2025 YouTube game) and Bad Bunny at Super Bowl LX are aimed at this group.

7. Fans and viewers abroad

International regular-season attendance by game

Source: Wikipedia: NFL International Series (tables), plus the 2005 Mexico City figure from Wikipedia: American Bowl.

International games sell out venues of any size, so stadium capacity sets attendance.

Social media

• The Cowboys lead NFL teams in total followers for a second year, with over 17M across Instagram, Facebook and X (Dec 2025) [Statista snippet]. The Chiefs lead on TikTok and the Patriots on X (Fuel VM, Dec 2025).
• League and team accounts generated about $1.5B in "social value" in the 2025 season [unconfirmed: STN Digital/Zoomph snippet].
• The NFL's total league-account follower count was not found in an opened source.

Tokyo in the news (October 2026)

On Oct 23, 2026 Goodell said Tokyo is "clearly on our list", for 2027 or 2028, citing the 100,000 crowd at a 10:30 a.m. Friday kickoff in Melbourne (NFL.com). Peter O'Reilly said the league is considering 10 international games in 2027, and a Japanese report says he doubted Japan would come as early as 2027 (Yahoo! Japan expert article). In August, Brett Gosper called Japan a market of interest and pointed to the time difference as the hurdle (IBTimes SG, citing Reuters).

8. Interest signals: Wikipedia pageviews

Source: Wikimedia pageviews API, human users only, Nov 2025–Oct 2026.

• Japanese readers look up the NFL about as often as German readers do, and at about 80% of the rate for the NBA. Germany now hosts a game every year.
• Japanese MLB and X League comparisons hit rate limits (429) and are not included.
• Google Trends has no free API, so it was not used here.

Sources

Answered: - TV and streaming: Wikipedia (Super Bowl TV ratings, Monday Night Football, International Series, American Bowl, NFL, History of the NFL, Sports in the US), NFL.com, Nielsen, ESPN Press Room, ESPN, Sports Media Watch, Sportico, SBJ (Netflix 2024; Gallup 2026; DAZN), NBC Sports/PFT, Yahoo Sports. - Polls, demographics and fans: Gallup, Spectrum Reach (Scarborough PDF), NPR, NFL media release, Fuel VM. - Data: Pro Football Reference via the Wayback Machine, Statistico, Wikimedia pageviews API. - Tokyo plans (Oct 2026): NFL.com, Yahoo Sports, KFYI (iHeart), IBTimes Singapore (citing Reuters), Yahoo! Japan expert article.

Came up empty or partial: - Reuters (401) and AP (403) blocked plain requests; their figures came from other outlets. USA Today (402) and the Yomiuri's Japan News page (blocked) also failed. - Pro Football Reference blocked direct requests (403). Its archived 1960–1990 attendance pages had no table. - StatMuse returned an unrelated table. - No Japan fan count or Japan Super Bowl audience was found; see the Japan page. - The NFL's total social follower count wasn't found. - Google Trends was not used (no free API). - Wikimedia rate-limited the extra Japanese comparisons.

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