Let’s talk about sports.
The end of the 2025-2026 NFL season marks my eleventh season. During those eleven seasons, I worked the final San Diego Chargers game at Qualcomm Stadium, welcomed and closed out the Rams at the Los Angeles Coliseum, and survived the opening seasons of both teams at SoFi amid a pandemic. However, in the world of sports broadcasting, the pinnacle gig to book is Super Bowl week.
The Super Bowl was held on February 8 in San Francisco, California. The big game is more than two teams duking it out for the Vince Lombardi Trophy. The Super Bowl machine is a sports-based entertainment program that feeds into one of the largest global economic revenue streams, fueled by union labor from all corners, in and out of the stadium. Let’s break it down…
According to the online publication Sportico, a news outlet dedicated to the business of sports, consumer spending on sports and sports-related entertainment is at an all-time high in 2025. For example, every NFL team receives more than $400 million from the league before a single down is played, and top MLB teams now earn more than $4 million per game in ticket revenue. The revenue from a single event is just a line item in the global sports economy.
Sports revenue spans the broader range of how fans spend their money across three sectors—fan engagement, sports products, and sports participation. To comprehensively analyze the global economic impact of sports, we need to not only include the money fans spend at or adjacent to a sporting event but also the fees they pay for gym memberships, golf and tennis clubs, and access to outdoor recreational areas. In addition, sporting equipment, recreational gear, sports medicine, and footwear and apparel are included. Lastly, fantasy sports, sports betting, sports bars, merchandise, collectibles, and licensing and monthly fees for streaming and transmission media packages must be included in the final tabulation.
The full economic magnitude of the sports industry is estimated at a global revenue stream of $2.65 trillion. The sports market should not be overlooked or undermined.
The Super Bowl has a significant financial impact on the host city. According to the US Chamber of Commerce, the final estimated economic impact of the 2024 Super Bowl in Las Vegas, Nevada, was $1 billion. New Orleans, the host of Super Bowl 2025, reported that the event generated $1.25 billion, creating almost 10,000 local jobs and $395 million in wages for Louisiana workers, according to the Louisiana Economic Development website.
The Super Bowl also represents thousands of hardworking union members from many AFL-CIO affiliates. Union members are not only on the field but also in all corners of the stadium and in the travel and hospitality surrounding the big event. At the 2023 Super Bowl, hosted by Glendale, Arizona, the players, referees, the broadcast and halftime shows, the electricity, stadium construction, food, journalism, local transportation, hotels, travel, and first responders were all represented by union membership.
The official game balls of the NFL are also produced by union labor. The leather is crafted by members of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 1546 who work at the Horween Leather Company in Chicago, Illinois. The Super Bowl footballs used at the game are handmade by Workers United Local 1385 in Ada, Ohio.
Every punt, pass, and throw executed at the Super Bowl is union-made.
Local 695 has a strong presence during Super Bowl week. Our Local membership provides broadcast engineers, record-and-playback operators, and technical services for audio mixing, recording, and playback at all scales. Our members also operate and engineer all comms systems, projection, and video wall playback for various shows in and around the big game.
We must recognize that events like the Super Bowl and other sporting events are essential to our Local’s economic stability, and we should be proud to help produce events that bring so many people together and support so many union families. That is why it is essential that we protect this jurisdiction. As the entertainment landscape shifts, some companies have tried to maximize profits by cutting labor costs. Union crewers who have been at the table for decades are being replaced by nonunion crewers who are bent on cutting rates. Rather than handcrafting a show around the unique experience of each game, some are looking to produce content factories run by a nonunion skeleton crew.
Sports matter. The work our members do to bring communities together matters. When the last second of the game has come to pass, and ticker tape has fallen, the IATSE, along with other union affiliates, will be there to support one of the most significant sports broadcast entertainment events of the year.
In Solidarity,
President Jillian Arnold