They're not most lucrative if you consider 16 games for the NFL versus 82 for NBA. The NFL actually makes more than the NBA as well (they just have a better revenue share deal, less players, max contract rules, etc) [1]. Injuries are far less common in basketball because the rules made it so. Everything is a foul these days. And you can't score points in foul trouble so the defense isn't as aggressive as it used to be. The league rewards points with crazy contracts disproportionate to your defensive skillset (JJ Redick got 23M for 15 PPG) so it's best to avoid fouls with lighter D and reap the financial benefits. In football you have to take more risk because there are only 16 games and if you're a skill player you don't get a lot of opportunities from game to game.

Consider the evolution of the NBA rules over the last few decades:

- Most players routinely carry the ball and get away with it despite it being a core basketball rule. That makes it easier to drive quicker to the basket, evade defenders and score more points which is what the league wants.

- There's way too much flopping/acting to draw fouls. Again - results in more points and the refs favor the stars that drive the league.

- Traveling is rampant and calls are missed all the time. Here's an 8 stepper: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VuG1K-LFgY. Here's Westbrook just walking with the ball in hand: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTlHqD45V5s. They don't watch it close enough and it's frustrating because they have favorites and they don't get to review travels. Challenges in football help to fix a lot of critical bad or no calls. From a key NBA ref - "We really don't reference the rulebook" [2].

NFL defensive schemes make NBA defensive schemes look childish. So I disagree with you on the decision making skills for the two sports. There's a lot more decision making skills required for football especially when someone like Peyton Manning or Tom Brady is running the offense essentially as a player/coach and running audibles/sending guys in motion/disguising plays and each team has highly varied playbooks. A single split second mistake on defense in football is a big deal. On basketball - it rarely affects the outcome.

Now I love both sports and football has suffered from the same initiative of trying to enable more points scored (just like baseball did), but I don't think it's fair to say that NBA players are more talented and athletic either. In fact - you probably won't see a single NBA player stronger or faster than the top performers in the NFL. NFL players regularly outperform NBA on the standing vertical too (2 football players did a 46" standing vert [3]). So for athleticism - NBA might win on running vertical in some cases/years and in overall conditioning, but they won't win in any speed/standing vertical/any measure of strength (reps or max). So it might be a wash at best for the NBA in athleticism. For talent I'm not sure either way. Can you really compare passing and running the offense between Steph Curry and Tom Brady? Or defense between Kawhi Leonard and Richard Sherman? Saying the NBA has more talent because they are in the game more and play both sides is like saying a full stack developer making more (and working more) has more talent than a more specialized developer.

[1] http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-nfl-made-13-billion-las...

[2] http://www.espn.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/6035/nba-traveli...

[3] http://postemaperformance.com/highest-vertical-jump/