NFL Chief Financial Officer Job Description

An NFL Chief Financial Officer runs the money side of a football club: the books, the budget, the bank accounts and the financing behind every building project. BLS describes chief financial officers as one type of chief executive, alongside chief operating officers, who manage a specific part of an organization rather than the whole of it. Its profile of financial managers adds that CFOs are responsible for the accuracy of an organization's financial reporting. At a club, that reporting covers two very different businesses under one roof: a football operation built around player contracts, and an entertainment business that sells tickets, suites, sponsorships, food and parking.

The core finance office

Underneath the CFO sit the functions BLS lists for financial managers. Controllers direct the preparation of financial reports such as income statements and balance sheets, and they often oversee the accounting, audit and budget departments. Treasurers and finance officers oversee investments and plans to raise capital. At a club those jobs become a monthly close that has to absorb lumpy, seasonal cash: season-ticket and suite money that can arrive months before a game is played, sponsorship payments on contract schedules, and a player payroll with a calendar of its own.

Football and business on one ledger

The general manager and the cap staff decide which players to sign. The CFO makes sure the club can pay for those decisions, which means modeling what an extension does to cash in each year, reserving funds for bonuses, and warning ownership when a run of large contracts will squeeze other spending. On the business side, the CFO pressure-tests revenue forecasts from ticketing and partnerships, signs off on capital requests, and prices deals such as a naming-rights agreement or a concert booked into the stadium.

Capital projects and ownership

Stadium, training facility and headquarters projects pull the CFO into lender negotiations, public financing talks and construction budgets that span several seasons. The CFO also prepares the reporting that owners and any limited partners receive, and sits in on the diligence when an owner sells a minority stake.

Scope varies by club

Titles and reporting lines differ from team to team. When the Chicago Bears hired a senior vice president of administration and chief financial officer in March 2025, the club said the role would encompass oversight of all financial, accounting and information technology operations. Where technology reports to someone else, the CFO's remit is narrower. Either way, the CFO is the person who answers for whether a number in front of ownership is right, and who explains it when it is not.

Education. BLS says top executives typically need at least a bachelor's degree and considerable work experience. For this job the degree is usually in accounting, finance or economics, and some candidates add an MBA, which can help those who came up through banking or corporate finance rather than public accounting.

Licensing. BLS notes that certified public accountants are licensed by their state's board of accountancy and must pass an exam, and that some employers may require a chief executive officer to hold the CPA. The route to that license changed in 2025, when NASBA and the AICPA updated the Uniform Accountancy Act, the model law that state boards draw on, to recognize three pathways:

• A graduate degree in accounting plus one year of professional experience
• The traditional 150-hour path: a bachelor's degree in accounting plus 30 additional semester credits, and one year of experience
• A new 120-hour path: a bachelor's degree in accounting plus two years of professional experience

All three require passing the CPA Exam. Because the act is a model law, check your own state board for which paths it accepts and when. Other credentials worth knowing are the Certified Management Accountant (CMA), awarded by the Institute of Management Accountants, for planning and cost work, and the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation from CFA Institute for capital markets and investment work.

Experience. As a rough guide, plan on 15 years or more in finance before a club hands over the top job. BLS says financial managers typically need a bachelor's degree and 5 years or more of experience in another business or financial occupation, and that experienced financial managers may advance to become CFOs. Club announcements show what teams weigh. When the Denver Broncos named a CFO on Oct. 13, 2026, the announcement from the club president cited 17 years of experience in finance, capital markets and executive leadership and more than $13 billion in financings structured and executed across professional sports, entertainment and infrastructure. The release does not set out the duties or reporting line of the job; it rests on that record, which ran through investment banking and senior finance posts at a Los Angeles stadium district and a women's soccer club.

Skills the job draws on.

• GAAP reporting, audit management and internal controls across several related entities
• Revenue recognition for multi-year suite, sponsorship and media contracts
• Project and public-private finance for stadium and facility work
• Treasury, debt covenants and lender relations
• Cash modeling of player contracts alongside football operations
• Clear, brief reporting to owners, limited partners and boards

BLS does not project jobs for NFL finance executives, so the federal numbers describe the occupations around this one. Overall employment of top executives, the group that includes CFOs, is projected to grow 5 percent from 2025 to 2035, faster than the average for all occupations, with about 304,100 openings a year on average. Employment of financial managers, the occupation that covers controllers and treasurers, is projected to grow 10 percent over the same decade, with about 65,600 openings a year on average. Those figures cover the whole economy. In football the number of CFO seats is set by the number of clubs, and one opens only when someone leaves, retires or is replaced.

Media money and the planning horizon

National media is the revenue line a club CFO cannot negotiate but still has to forecast. According to Sports Business Journal, the league's current media deals run through the 2033 season, with opt-out clauses for most partners after the 2029 season and after 2030 for Disney/ESPN/ABC. In August 2026, Fox's chief executive said the network would not take part in early renegotiation, and the league answered that its position had not changed. In September 2026, the commissioner told CNBC the league is "evaluating" whether to repackage its games. For a finance office, that leaves the later years of any long-range plan resting on a national revenue line that has not been settled, and every stadium or debt model has to carry that uncertainty.

A wider ownership group

The circle a CFO reports to can also be wider than it once was. NFL owners voted 31-1 in August 2024 to allow teams, for the first time, to sell ownership stakes to private equity, and the league's limit lets a franchise sell no more than 10% of its ownership to private equity, according to Front Office Sports. The outlet reported in September 2026 that owners have no immediate plans to raise that limit. Each limited-partner sale brings diligence requests, valuation work and a new set of investors who expect regular reporting, all of which runs through the finance office.

Where the job can lead

Next steps can include a club president or chief operating officer role, a finance post at a league office, or a senior job at a stadium developer, an entertainment company or a sports-focused investment firm. Traffic runs both ways, as the club hires described above show.

What to watch

• Media rights talks ahead of the opt-out window
• Financing for new stadiums and renovations
• Further limited-partner sales under the private equity rule
• Finance systems and automation in the monthly close and in forecasting

Dear Search Committee,

Please consider me for your club's opening for a chief financial officer. For the past six years I have been vice president of finance at Harbor Point Arena Group, which owns an indoor arena, a minor league hockey team and a mixed-use block of restaurants and offices next to the building. I report to our chief executive and to a three-member ownership board, and I run a finance team that handles accounting, treasury, tax and planning for five legal entities.

The work I am proudest of is the arena renovation we finished last year. I built the financing plan, which combined a bank construction loan, a county infrastructure contribution and premium-seat deposits, and I negotiated the loan covenants so that a slow sales year would not trip a default. I reported progress to ownership every month in a two-page format the board now uses for every capital project.

Day to day, I keep the business and hockey sides on one ledger. Our hockey operations staff decide on players; my job is to show what each contract does to cash in every year it runs and to flag when a group of commitments will crowd out other spending. I also rebuilt our revenue forecast after we found that it treated every suite renewal as certain. We now forecast renewals account by account, and our budget misses have narrowed.

I know an NFL club is a bigger and more public operation, with league rules, national revenue and a larger ownership group to serve. I have spent the past year studying how club finances work, and I would bring the same habits: clean books, early warnings and plain reporting.

I would welcome a conversation about your priorities for the next few seasons.

Sincerely, Jordan Ellis