In 1949, a philologist and Harvard lecturer by the name of George Kingsley Zipf published a 573-page treatise in which he demonstrated that people are fundamentally lazy, so much so that we exercise just a fraction of our capabilities (20%) in the service of satisfying the bulk of our responsibilities (80%). Zipf published his findings under the straight-shooting title Human Behavior and the Principle of Least Effort, and in what amounts to the ultimate shirker’s defense, he died before any academic types could poke holes in his thesis.
The same year that Zipf secured his measure of posthumous fame, Harvard’s football team bumbled its way to a 1-8 record. The Crimson were outscored 276-103, and while no one can say if Zipf spent any of his final fall Saturdays in the stands down in Allston, the proportion of points scored versus points given up was eerily consistent with his 80-20 theory. (The math works out to 73-27. Slacker.) As it happens, Zipf’s least-effort thesis coincides with the principles of power-law distribution, and once you familiarize yourself with the pattern, you’ll start seeing it everywhere—especially when you’re talking football.
Take, for example, the NFL’s ever-expanding roster of international games. While the early-morning NFL Network telecasts delivered an audience that was just 20% the size of the big Sunday national windows on CBS and Fox, Roger Goodell spends roughly 80% of his time dreaming up ways to turn the overseas package into yet another cash cow for the league and its 32 owners. OK, fine: There’s no way to quantify how often the commish thinks about carving out a new jet-lag window, but global expansion is clearly top of mind. During an appearance on NBC’s Today show earlier this week, Goodell confirmed that this season’s record slate of seven international dates barely qualifies as a half-measure.
In true Montana fashion (Tony, not Joe), the commissioner has his eye on the world, and everything in it.
“We hope to get to 16 regular-season games that we can play [overseas],” Goodell said, as NBC cut to a Mercator projection of the world map. In other words, there’s nearly a full season of content looming out there, all of which can be auctioned off to the highest bidder.
As the NFL hasn’t been shy about talking up its expansionist leanings, it’s crucial that Friday night’s return to São Paulo is a rousing success. In kicking off the season’s beefed-up travel slate from Brazil’s financial hub, the Chiefs and Chargers will also participate in the first-ever NFL game to be streamed exclusively by YouTube. While Google’s wildly popular TV analogue has hosted the out-of-market Sunday Ticket package since 2023, Friday’s AFC West clash will be an acid test.
Like Amazon and Netflix before it, YouTube will have to perform with the same level of excellence that enabled it to command a 13.4% share of all U.S. “TV” viewing in July. That means serving up a glitch-free streaming experience: No buffering, no lag, no pixelation, no crashes. (Say what you will about the hoary old tube, but that five-nines reliability—barring a system outage, TV works 99.999% of the time—is what we’ll miss most once the last linear set gets catapulted into the landfill.)
Which is why it’s nice to have big wallet of Google backing the big streaming effort. As MoffettNathanson analyst Michael Nathanson observed this spring in a note to investors, “YouTube [in 2024] was already the second-largest media company by revenue at $54.2 billion, trailing only Disney.” The Mouse House’s media division, which includes its entertainment and sports holdings, generated $59.7 billion in revenue last year.
The number for YouTube to beat on Friday night is the 14.2 million viewers who streamed last season’s Packers-Eagles debut on Peacock. Philly’s 34-29 win stands as the second most-watched live event to appear on the Comcast-owned platform, trailing only the January 2024 Dolphins-Chiefs Wild Card game (22.9 million). And here comes Zipf’s spooky ratio again, as last year’s oversees opener carved out a 21 share in the Philly market, where roughly 80% of Iggles enthusiasts celebrated the victory by getting drunk as a boiled owl on Yuengling.
Not convinced? Well, here’s a nod to Zipf that can stand up to the rigors of fact-checking: Last season, the average 30-second commercial in NBC’s priciest primetime entertainment program, The Voice, commanded roughly 18% as many dollars as a single unit in Sunday Night Football. Meanwhile, an advertiser looking to reach an NFL-grade volume of adults 18-49 last fall would need to buy around 23 spots in The Voice to match the deliveries of a single in-game spot in SNF.
The 80-20 rule could very well apply to the inaugural YouTube game as well. While Peacock is no longer carrying the Brazil outing—the platform will instead stream an exclusive Saturday game two days after Christmas, with the Ravens-Packers looking like the best available option—NBC Sports will handle the production duties for Friday night’s offering. YouTube has recruited a lineup of Extremely Online personalities to host specially-themed alt-casts, including someone with 43.6 million channel subscribers named “IShowSpeed.” By way of comparison, the NFL’s official YouTube channel boasts a relatively paltry 14.9 million subs.
In addition to the efforts of IShowSpeed and SKabeche (13.7 million subs), another Internet-type person who generates video content under the handle “Deestroying” will be prowling the sidelines alongside NFL Network’s Stacey Dales. If previous experiments in alternacasting are anything to go by, the split of impressions between YouTube’s primary feed and these sidecar streams is likely to work out to around … 80-20. And because YouTube isn’t charging fans to access its São Paolo transmission, the NFL could very well double its deliveries from a year ago. Anyone with a functioning modem will be able to catch the Chiefs-Chargers game for the low, low cost of nothing.
And nothing is exactly what you’ll find in the Bolts’ trophy case, as the Chargers’ lone appearance in a Super Bowl 30 years ago ended in a 49-26 loss at the hands of Steve Young’s 49ers. But the Lombardi is another gateway to Zipf’s power-law distribution, as NFL championship runs are in lockstep with the 80-20 rule. For example, the Steelers and Patriots each have claimed six Super Bowl titles, and wouldn’t you know it: 12 is 20% of 59.
A similar imbalance informs everything from fantasy football output to Travis Kelce’s 2024 stats, as the Chiefs tight end hauled in 97 passes last season, or 18% of the balls Patrick Mahomes put in the air. When asked if Kelce’s fiancée might be invited to perform at the Super Bowl LX halftime show, Goodell told Today’s Savannah Guthrie that Taylor Swift “would be welcome at any time”—which sounds like there’s an 80% chance she’ll do it.
However things shake out on the entertainment front, the NFL has no plans to play a Week 1 Friday game at any of the earth’s coordinates next season. During a conference call with reporters earlier this week, NFL EVP of media distribution Hans Schroeder confirmed that the calendar loophole in the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 that allowed for two years of late-summer Friday dates will temporarily close in 2026.
That said, nothing’s holding YouTube back from auditioning for its shot at the inevitable package of international games the NFL will look to auction off for $1 billion or more just as soon as it has its 16 dates nailed down.
A successful showing on Friday could put YouTube in the driver’s seat for that overseas suite, and while the bulk of this year’s games will be played in some of the great European capitals (London, Dublin, Madrid, Berlin), the power-law distribution favors another North American venue. Google Maps says a bearing of 20ºN 80ºW would plunk the NFL down right in the heart of Cuba, which shares a time zone with 48% of all U.S. TV households.