NFL’s TV Income Nears $3 Billion : Sports: The league agrees to a four-year deal with CBS for just over $1 billion.

The NFL’s television income reached almost $3 billion today when the league agreed to a new four-year deal with CBS that will keep NFC games on the network through 1993.

The CBS-NFL deal, worth slightly more than $1 billion, leaves only NBC to negotiate its AFC package with the league. News that NBC had kept the AFC games was expected by the end of the week.

CBS will continue to broadcast NFC games on Sunday afternoons. The CBS deal calls for the network to televise the 1992 Super Bowl in Minneapolis, leaving Super Bowls in 1993 and 1994 still up for grabs among the three major networks.

The NFL’s television package began taking shape Feb. 22 when Turner Broadcasting paid a reported $450 million for 35 regular-season games and 12 exhibition games over four years.

ESPN announced a similar deal Feb. 28. That cable network will show up to 13 games per season, each in the second half of the schedule, the Pro Bowl and exhibition games.

ABC fought off aggressive bids by CBS and the Fox Network to keep the Monday night package it has held for two decades. That deal, announced March 1, will mean a reported $900 million to the league. ABC’s pact includes 17 games the first two years and 18 the third and fourth. The network will also broadcast two Saturday first-round playoff games each year and the next Super Bowl.

The NFC games on CBS earned a 13.8 rating in 1989, 25% more than the 11.0 registered for AFC games on NBC.

“Retaining our Sunday package was a key element in our long-term corporate strategy of providing broadcast coverage of dominant sports franchises,” CBS Sports President Neal Pilson said.

CBS televised this year’s Super Bowl from New Orleans.

The NFL earned $476 million a year from television in pacts that ended last season. Each team is expected to receive more than $30 million a year once all negotiations are concluded. Each NFL franchise received $17 million last season.