The NFL has agreed with the National Domestic Violence Hotline in a deal the organization says will fund it to the point it expects to be able to field every call, chat and text it receives for the next five years.
A hotline spokesperson told ESPN.com's Darren Rovell the commitment was a "multiyear, multimillion dollar deal."
The hotline was unable to answer more than 77,000 calls last year due to funding issues, president and CEO Katie Ray-Jones said in a news release Thursday.
"Recent domestic violence incidents involving NFL players pushed the capacity of our organization to unprecedented levels," Ray-Jones said in the statement. "Because of this long-term commitment by the NFL to provide The Hotline with much-needed resources, our services will finally be accessible to all those who need us when they bravely take the first step to find safety and live a life free of abuse."
Anna Isaacson, the NFL's recently hired vice president of social responsibility, said in a phone interview with USA Today Sports earlier in the day that she and other league officials, including commissioner Roger Goodell, are fully in tune with the domestic violence controversy and take it "incredibly seriously."
"I think the good news is that we have cared about these issues for many years," Isaacson told USA Today. "We know we don't have all the answers. We are bringing in the right people to guide us, to help us make decisions that move this issue forward and to really now take this opportunity and allow us to make a massive difference for thousands of women around the country."
Isaacson said she talks to Goodell probably six times a day and that he is an "active part" of her group's meetings.
"We're working night and day on this topic right now," Isaacson said. "This is the most important thing that we are doing right now. ... We have an issue, clearly. We have an issue. If we have one issue it's too many. We know that this is a much broader issue than the NFL and we know that we have a responsibility now to help fix that."