Roger Goodell’s NFL career began about as far away from a billion-dollar payday as you can get.
After graduating from Washington & Jefferson College with an economics degree in 1981, Goodell wrote to NFL teams looking for a way into professional football. In 1982, he landed an unpaid administrative internship at the league office in New York. He briefly interned with the New York Jets before returning to NFL headquarters in 1984, then spent the next two decades methodically climbing the corporate ladder.
By 1987, Goodell was assistant to the president of the American Football Conference. He later worked under Commissioner Paul Tagliabue in a series of increasingly important positions before being named Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer in 2001. When Tagliabue retired five years later, NFL owners elected Goodell commissioner. He officially took office on September 1, 2006.
And that’s when Goodell started getting PAID.
Because the NFL league office was structured at the time as a tax-exempt trade association, its financial filings gave the public an unusually clear window into the commissioner’s compensation. In Goodell’s first full year running the league, 2007, he earned around $6 million.
Not bad for a guy who started as an unpaid intern. But here’s where the story gets really interesting.
Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images
The NFL Roger Goodell Inherited
When Goodell took over, the NFL was already the most powerful sports league in America. But compared with today’s NFL, the financial numbers almost look quaint.
League revenue was around $6 billion per year when Goodell became commissioner. In Forbes’ 2007 franchise valuations, the average NFL team was worth $957 million. Jerry Jones’ Dallas Cowboys had just become the league’s most valuable franchise at roughly $1.5 billion.
Now fast-forward two decades.
According to Sportico’s 2026 valuations, the average NFL franchise is worth $9.34 billion. The Dallas Cowboys alone are valued at an astonishing $15.5 billion. Nine NFL teams are now worth at least $10 billion. The league’s latest confirmed annual revenue topped $23 billion.
The rise in NFL franchise values has been extraordinary. The average NFL franchise today is worth more than six times what the league’s single most valuable franchise was worth during Goodell’s first full year as commissioner.
And the league’s annual revenue has nearly quadrupled.
That is why, whether fans love him, hate him, boo him at the draft, blame him for the Tom Brady “Deflategate” saga, or curse his name after an unpopular league decision, NFL owners have been willing to compensate Roger Goodell extremely well.
By the financial standards that matter to his actual bosses, he has delivered spectacular results.
From $6 Million To $60+ Million A Year
Roger Goodell’s salary rose along with the NFL.
He earned $6 million in 2007, $12 million the following year, and $10 million in both 2009 and 2010. By 2012, his compensation had jumped to $29.5 million. He earned $44.2 million in 2013 and around $40-$45 million annually through much of the middle of the decade.
Eventually, however, the NFL stopped giving us such a clear view.
In 2015, the league office gave up its tax-exempt status. That eliminated the requirement that Goodell’s compensation be disclosed through the same public filings. Since then, piecing together his pay has required a combination of occasional disclosures and estimates.
One particularly revealing disclosure showed Goodell earning $63.9 million in each of two consecutive league fiscal years. The overwhelming majority came from performance bonuses rather than conventional salary.
That’s an important detail because Goodell doesn’t simply collect a gigantic guaranteed paycheck. His compensation has increasingly been structured around the financial performance of the league he runs.
And the new contract takes that model even further.
A New Deal Through 2031
On September 6, 2026, the NFL announced that Goodell had agreed to his fifth contract extension since becoming commissioner.
The new four-season deal keeps him in charge through the 2030 NFL season and expires on March 31, 2031. The financial terms were not disclosed, but the structure was.
More than 95% of Goodell’s total compensation will be performance-based, tied to metrics measuring both his performance and the NFL’s performance. The NFL compensation committee that negotiated the deal is chaired by New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft.
That’s a pretty good arrangement for both sides when you consider what’s potentially coming next. Goodell’s new contract expires at the same time as the current collective bargaining agreement. The NFL is considering an eventual expansion to an 18-game regular season, continuing to push aggressively into international markets, and will eventually have another opportunity to reshape its already enormous media-rights portfolio.
And if Goodell continues earning anywhere near his recent compensation, he’s approaching an absolutely wild career milestone.
$1 billion in earnings as NFL commissioner.
Roger Goodell’s Road To $1 Billion
By our count, Goodell has earned roughly $751.7 million in salary and bonuses as commissioner through 2025.
For the projection below, we’re assuming he earns $65 million annually from 2026 through 2030. Those future figures are estimates, not disclosed contractual guarantees. Given that Goodell has already earned more than $60 million in certain years and his latest contract is more than 95% performance-based, $65 million provides a reasonable benchmark if the league continues performing at its current level.
| Year | Salary (USD) |
|---|---|
| 2007 | $6 million |
| 2008 | $12 million |
| 2009 | $10 million |
| 2010 | $10 million |
| 2011 | $12 million |
| 2012 | $29.5 million |
| 2013 | $44.2 million |
| 2014 | $45 million |
| 2015 | $40 million |
| 2016 | $45 million |
| 2017 | $35 million |
| 2018 | $40 million |
| 2019 | $50 million |
| 2020 | $50 million |
| 2021 | $64 million |
| 2022 | $64 million |
| 2023 | $65 million |
| 2024 | $65 million |
| 2025 | $65 million |
| 2026 | $65 million |
| 2027 | $65 million |
| 2028 | $65 million |
| 2029 | $65 million |
| 2030 | $65 million |
| Total Earned | $751.7 million |
| Total Future Earnings | $325 million |
| Projected Career Earnings | $1.076 billion |
Under that scenario, Goodell would finish the 2030 season with roughly $1.077 billion in cumulative compensation as NFL commissioner.
That’s an astonishing amount of money for any employee in any industry.
But consider what happened to the business during his tenure. Goodell inherited a league generating around $6 billion annually, where the average franchise wasn’t even worth $1 billion. He now oversees a $23+ billion revenue machine where the average team is worth more than $9 billion and the crown jewel is valued at $15.5 billion.
NFL fans may never stop booing Roger Goodell. His 32 bosses, however, have more than a billion reasons to applaud.
