Are You Ready For Some Football? How To Trade The Start Of The NFL Season

America's REAL pastime is right around the corner, and you can hear the collective audience saying: Thank you. Football is not only a great way to kill a Sunday, especially when your wife wants you to fix the sink or clean out the garage, it is massive business. I'm not talking in the hundreds of millions, I'm talking billions. As a league last year, the NFL did over $6 billion in revenues. That puts the NFL in the same neighborhood as companies like Clorox

, Polo Ralph Lauren

and Dollar Tree

. In other words, the NFL is a cash cow for its partners. It makes the billionaire owners even more wealthy, and the millionaire players rich beyond their wildest dreams. That is why it was so important that the NFL resolve its

which occurred after the 2010 season and into the late summer. With billions upon billions of dollars being split, the NFL owners and the players HAD to come to an agreement. Otherwise, the fall would have seen a drastic drop off in economic production, and the U.S. economy is weak enough. Just look at

if you need any more evidence of that fact. Whether you root for Tom Brady, Drew Brees, Peyton Manning, Aaron Rodgers or any other quarterback and their team, it doesn't matter. The NFL season is upon us, and the fever is running hotter than Chris Johnson's 40 time. The season starts Thursday, and has gotten so big it played a

the same night. (Of course, the Republicans asked Obama to move the speech to Thursday, but that's a different topic altogether.) The season starts with the Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packers taking on the New Orleans Saints. Green Bay is led by the aforementioned Rodgers, while the Saints are led by Brees. It should be a great way to kick off the season and be a precursor for a great 2011 season. So how to trade the start of the season? You can look at it one of two ways to play the games: either go with the advertisers, or go with what the consumers will be consuming. Domino's Pizza

, Pepsi

and Molson-Coors

all should see a boost during the season, as NFL fans consume mass quantities of pizza, beer and soda every Sunday and Monday night. Football is a sport best known for tailgating in the parking lot with your friends and family, or watching it on your big screen TV in your den. Either way, people will be eating, drinking, and throwing the pigskin around. These companies may see a boost. The other way to play it is of course the networks which carry the games, as they benefit from increase advertising rates due to the games. CBS

and FOX

carry the majority of the games. CBS has the AFC conference, while the NFC is on Fox. NBC

carries "Sunday Night Football," and generally gets larger ratings then the 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. eastern games because it is a national game and has no competition. The same mentality goes for ESPN

, which carries Monday Night Football. To start the year, ESPN generally has two Monday games, then one every other week. Since it is a cable channel, the ratings are not as high as say CBS, FOX, or NBC, but ESPN is still able to command strong advertising dollars for its games. With the NFL season fast approaching, I have only one question for you. Are you ready???