🚫 Micah Parsons Just Saved $250K While Breaking the Packers’ Biggest Unwritten Rule

For many people in the sports world, there are really only two seasons:

But there’s a reason ads during an NFL game are considered 23x more effective than any other placement, it’s because football is our last true mono-culture.

There’s no other piece of media in the world that you can just say, “Did you catch the game last night?” and most people will know what you’re talking about. But really, that’s just my way of priming you for a football-heavy newsletter today. Enjoy!

In today’s newsletter:

🗞 The Big Story: Micah Parsons Just Saved $250K While Breaking the Packers’ Biggest Unwritten Rule

📉 Biggest Loser: How Two Guys From Egypt Cost the NFL $28 Billion and (Almost) Got Away With It

🏆 Winner’s Circle: Why the Baltimore Ravens Are (Purposely) Losing Over $600,000 per Game

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Micah Parsons just broke one of the Packers’ biggest unwritten rules, but he likely saved himself a quarter of a million dollars because of it.

Micah Parsons’ Jersey: After being traded to Green Bay last week, countless jersey swaps started popping up of Micah rocking the green and gold. The only problem was that no. 11 on the Packers is already taken.

Now, it’s not uncommon for big-time acquisitions to come to a new team and pay existing players for their number. For example, when All-Pro defensive tackle Gerald McCoy signed with the Panthers in 2019, he reportedly paid Kyle Love $250,000 for his number.

So it wouldn’t have been crazy for Micah (who just became the richest non-quarterback in NFL history) to do the same, but instead, he decided to make headlines for a different reason.

Making History: Shortly after being dealt to Green Bay, Micah posted this on Twitter:

For context, no Green Bay Packer has ever worn no. 0, and a lot of fans seemed supportive of the idea. However, Micah decided to go with no. 1 instead, which hasn’t been worn by a Green Bay Packer in almost 100 years, and has only ever been worn by Curly Lambeau, the man who founded the team in 1919 and the person whom the stadium is named after.

Now, according to the team’s site, the number isn’t officially retired, but ironically enough, when Jayden Reed, who currently wears no. 11, asked the team if he could wear no. 1 when he was drafted two years ago, they told him, “it wasn’t available.”

But clearly, the same rules don’t apply to Micah Parsons, who will now have some pretty big shoes to fill.

How did two guys in Egypt trick the NFL out of $28 billion?

Just a warning, if you’re a football fan, this story does not have a happy ending.

Background: For as long as the internet has been around, professional sports leagues have had to deal with illegal streaming sites. In fact, as recently as 2023, three leagues here in America, including the NFL, sent a joint letter to the US Patent and Trademark Office complaining that illegal streams were costing them “up to $28 billion in additional potential annual revenue.”

And no website has been a bigger culprit of this than Streameast.

According to The Athletic, Streameast’s domains have generated a combined 1.6 billion visits in the last year alone. That’s good enough for 136 million average monthly visits, which is more than the NFL’s own website.

So, it didn’t come as much of a surprise when last year, the U.S. Federal Government seized multiple Streameast’s domains, which now all contain this message.

However, the website’s two owners actually planned for this.

Streameast’s Loophole: Like most illegal streaming sites, Streameast isn’t based in the U.S., which makes it extremely hard for U.S.-based leagues and broadcast companies to track down the owners of the site and get them banned for good.

However, even though Streameast’s main domains were taken over, within the same month, the website launched 80 new mirror domains, and since U.S. law hasn’t kept pace with the speed of piracy on the internet, Streameast continued to operate throughout the 2024 NFL season.

However, this year, things aren’t looking so good.

Culprit’s Arrested: Because just this week, it was reported that two Egyptian men were arrested with the support of the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (A.C.E), a coalition of 50 media companies, including:

These men were found with laptops and smartphones, which were believed to be running more than 80 illegal domains, as well as $6.2 million in laundered advertising revenue they had collected since 2010.

Which means for football fans hoping to avoid paying the $750 it’s going to cost this year to watch every NFL game, you might have to look somewhere else.

The Baltimore Ravens are missing out on over half a million dollars per game (on purpose). Let’s break it all down.

NFL Game Cost: It’s no secret that NFL games have become some of the most expensive sporting events to attend in the entire world. In fact, a new study from Bookies.com just reported that the average price for a family of four to attend an NFL game has now reached over $777:

Cost to Attend an NFL Game in 2025 (League Average)

That’s an increase of about 40% in the last 10 years, even though inflation has only risen by 32% during the same time frame.

But why is that?

Concession Inflation: I’d make the argument that concession prices have a lot to do with it. For example, in 2014, a 16-ounce beer at the Washington Commanders stadium cost just $6.55. Today, the same drink costs $16.49, a 152% increase, and they’re not the only ones.

In fact, the average NFL increase in beer prices during that time frame was 47%, again, all while inflation only rose by 32%.

That’s why it was so shocking to see a team make an announcement about lowering concession prices, but it doesn’t come without a cost.

Ravens’ Value Menu: This week, the Baltimore Ravens released the prices for their value menu, which includes 11 items under $5, but I wanted to see just how much money the team was actually missing out on by doing this.

The Math: I took the 2025 NFL average price of one beer and one hot dog, and multiplied it by 71,000 – the capacity of M&T Bank Stadium – for an average game-day concession revenue of $1.27 million.

$10.97 beer x $7.01 hot dog x 71,000 fans = $1,276,580 average game day revenue

But when you do this same calculation and swap in the new reduced prices for a hot dog and a beer, you’ll see that the team is actually forgoing around $674,500 every single game day by lowering their prices.

$4.99 beer x $3.49 hot dog x 71,000 fans = $602,080 Raven’s estiamted game day revenue

$1,276,580 - $602,080 = $674,500 “lost” game day revenue

Regardless, every team needs to do this ASAP.

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👋🏻 Happy Friday!

May your weekend be filled with as much football as you can stomach and limited RedZone commercials.