House lawmakers on Wednesday seized on the migration of NFL games from free TV to subscription platforms, in a hearing lopsided in criticism that frustrated fans are shelling out more to see their favorite teams.
A hearing to examine the Sports Broadcasting Act — and more specifically an antitrust exemption the NFL has enjoyed for 65 years — saw Republicans and Democrats expressing complaints about costs and concerns that the law is outdated.
“When beneficiaries of an exemption begin using it to restrict access, increase prices and strengthen their own market power beyond what Congress intended, lawmakers, Congress, have an obligation to reconsider whether that exemption remains justified,” said Rep. Scott Fitzgerald (R-WI), who chairs the House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee.
The Sports Broadcasting Act, which passed in Congress in 1961, gave limited immunity for the NFL and other leagues to collectively negotiate the sale of broadcast rights, intended in part to help teams in smaller markets. But cost of NFL rights have soared even in recent years, to a reported $110 billion in a 2022, 11-year deal with Fox, Paramount, Disney, NBCUniversal and Amazon
Democrats echoed the criticism. Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), the ranking member on the subcommittee, said that the law “absolutely deserves a serious reexamination.” “American sports fans are paying more, getting less and navigating a fragmented streaming environment that the 1961 Congress could not possibly have anticipated,” he said.
But Nadler also tied the rising prices to media concentration, and blasted the Trump administration for “one of the most aggressive waves of media consolidation in modern history.”
Nadler cited the approval of Skydance’s merger with Paramount last year, and the expected approval of Paramounts proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, a transaction that would give them “one of the largest collections of sportscasting rights in the country.” And he also warned of sweeping changes if Paramount acquires CNN, calling it a “First Amendment crisis dressed up as an innocuous business deal.” He said that CBS News’ firing of 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley last week was a “preview of the censorship regime these mergers are enabling.”
CBS News has pushed back on Pelley and other correspondents’ claims of corporate influence, and Paramount CEO David Ellison told correspondent Lesley Stahl, who is remaining on the show, that the top-rated newsmagazine would have editorial independence.
Nadler also pointed to a Wall Street Journal report that Rupert Murdoch lobbied Trump at a dinner in February over the NFL streaming deals and the impact that they have on broadcasters.
“Within weeks of that dinner, the Justice Department opened the investigation that is a stated reason for today’s hearing,” Nadler said. “Yes, we should reform the Sports Broadcasting Act. Fans are being asked to pay too much across too many platforms just to watch their favorite teams. But we cannot pretend we are doing the work of consumer protection when we examine the SBA in isolation.”
In response to the hearing, an NFL spokesperson said, “The NFL’s media distribution model is the most fan and broadcaster-friendly in the entire sports and entertainment industry. With over 87% of our games on free, broadcast television, including 100% of games in the markets of the competing teams, the NFL has for decades put our fans front and center in how we distribute our content. The 2025 season was our most viewed since 1989 and reflects the strength of the NFL distribution model and its wide availability to all fans.” When it was just three three major broadcast networks buying sports rights, none offered the full slate of out-of-market games to viewers.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell was invited to testify, but declined due to ongoing litigation, per the AP.
“The NFL’s decision to license a few more games to widely adopted streaming services is simply a reflection that those platforms now offer significantly more reach than the current pay TV ecosystem and that broadcast television remains the foundation of our media distribution,” Ted Ullyot, the league general counsel, wrote in the letter.
Among the witnesses was Clay Travis, who recently departed OutKick and is a Fox News contributor, who said that “I feel pretty good that the NFL is not going to start losing money anytime soon, and I think everybody understands that the NFL’s power today is drastically different than it was in 1961.”
Jim Hallers, founder of Tailgators Pub & Grill, talked of the increased costs that small businesses like his have in converting their screens to streaming. Curtis LeGeyt, the CEO of the National Association of Broadcasters, said that lawmakers make clear that the Sports Broadcasting Act was “about free over-the-air broadcasting, not paywalls.”
Anna Gomez, the sole Democrat on the FCC, raised concerns as well about the migration of sports to pay platforms, but said that any “meaningful update” to the Sports Broadcasting Act requires legislative action, not the agency. The FCC opened a proceeding on the issue earlier this year.
“According to reports, the scrutiny now being applied to sports leagues through government agencies like the FCC and DOJ appears to be driven less by a genuine interest in protecting fans and more by the influence of powerful media companies with close ties to this administration that stand to benefit financially from the outcome of that scrutiny,” she said.
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