Key Points
- NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell declined to testify before Congress on media rights deals citing ongoing litigation.
- Lawmakers are reviewing the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 and its antitrust exemption for the NFL; the scrutiny centers on expanded streaming deals with platforms like Amazon, Google and Netflix.
- Critics argue the shift toward streaming increases costs and reduces free access to games for fans.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has declined to participate in a Congressional hearing scheduled for next week that scrutinizes its media rights deals.
Earlier this week, Goodell was invited by Representative Jim Jordan, the House Judiciary Committee Chairman, to testify before the Congressional hearing on June 10, with his comments expected to focus on the league’s broad exemption to federal antitrust laws rooted in the Sports Communications Act of 1961.
Under the law, the NFL is allowed to circumvent antitrust rules by executing media rights deals with broadcast networks on behalf of its 32 teams. The waiver was intended to make it easier for Americans to watch games on broadcast TV by allowing the league to negotiate directly with broadcast networks for national rights deals.
That exemption has been called into question by some lawmakers after the NFL signed one-off deals with tech companies like Google, Amazon and Netflix in recent years — pacts that continue to expand with every new football season.
This year, the NFL will offer a number of regular-season and post-season games on Amazon’s Prime Video and Netflix, more than it has in prior seasons. Google-owned YouTube has the exclusive right to sell the NFL Sunday Ticket, a service that unlocks access to Sunday games aired by CBS and Fox on Sundays that aren’t available from a sports fan’s local station.
The situation involving the NFL and streaming services has resulted in criticism that the league is embracing a pseudo-pay per view model, where fans are asked to shell out for streaming services they may otherwise not want in order to watch football games that were previously available on free broadcast TV.
“Back when the Sports Broadcast Act was passed, the promise was you’ll get to watch every one of your team’s games for free,” Jordan said in a recent interview with ESPN. “Things have changed dramatically since 1961.”
Earlier this year, Senator Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin introduced legislation aimed at eliminating sports blackouts, while President Donald Trump has criticized the growing costs associated with watching NFL games across multiple subscription services.
NFL executives contend that the streaming deals are meant to bring more games to viewers on the platforms they’re already using, and that the majority of regular-season and post-season games are still available on broadcast and cable TV. National games offered by streaming services are still available on broadcast TV stations in the immediate home markets of the two participating teams, though viewers who live outside those specific markets — who might otherwise be part of a team’s broadcast area — aren’t given the same benefit.
“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,” NFL General Counsel Ted Ullyot wrote in a letter to Congress this month.
Ullyot said Goodell’s decision to decline the invitation to appear before Congress is stemmed in ongoing litigation involving the NFL. The U.S. Department of Justice is among those examining the NFL’s broadcast arrangements with streaming services to determine if they’re covered by antitrust laws or fall within the league’s legal exemption.
