I married an Arkansas woman so I have to go with Southern in order to promote peace and harmony within my household . Second place RussianSlavic . <| sep |>. and Sapping Ospreys <| sep |> The teams are forprofit businesses for the most part if i remember correctly . The NFL changed to a forprofit corporation a while ago so they wouldn ' t have to report their officers ' compensation and for a handful of other reasons . It ' s a bit more of an advanced corporate structure . The NFL doesn ' t own the teams , and doesn ' t count their income because they don ' t own them . The teams are owned by people including corporations and pay fees to the NFL for membership , advertising , etc . I ' m not familiar with the exact deal . The NFL used to be treated the same as a business league or a chamber of commerce as a 501 c 6 . What that means is that the NFL was there to promote the business of its members , which is limited to the teams .