Scathing House Judiciary Committee report accuses NFL of stretching law's limited antitrust exemption
A scathing report released on Monday by the House Judiciary Committee and its chairman Jim Jordan, takes the NFL to task, arguing that America's most popular sports league has ignored the narrow guardrails of the 1961 Sports Broadcasting Act and its antitrust exemption while on a journey to becoming a lucrative sports empire.
All while limiting consumer choices and inflating prices for viewing games.
The report, obtained by Fox News, includes the central argument on pages 8–9 that Congress created the Sports Broadcasting Act (SBA) to keep games widely available on free television and help a struggling league survive.
But what has happened since 1961, lawmakers argue, is that the antitrust exemption created to lift the NFL instead created one of the most powerful sports media businesses in the world that stretched the narrow boundaries of the exemption.
You know the report wasn't going to be friendly to the NFL by simply reading the title.
The Sports Broadcasting Act: A special-interest antitrust exemption gone awry.
The report, at its heart, zeroes in on the league's Sunday Ticket offering. It highlights evidence from the ongoing Sunday Ticket antitrust case, including a 2024 jury verdict that found the NFL violated antitrust law and awarded more than $4.796 billion in damages to plaintiffs. That verdict was later vacated by a judge, wrongfully so, according to the report.
NFL’S GROSSLY EXPANDED NATIONAL SCHEDULE IS MAKING REDZONE AND SUNDAY TICKET LESS ESSENTIAL
The report also cites internal data suggesting most Sunday Ticket subscribers aren't "avid fans who want every game," but rather fans trying to watch one out-of-market team."
Page 18 of the report is especially troubling for the NFL relative to its decisions with The Sunday Ticket package. It outlines that:
The Committee and Subcommittee have been examining the NFL’s conduct regarding its agreements with broadcast, cable, and streaming distribution channels and weighing how they fit within the narrow antitrust exemption provided by the SBA.
And the findings?
The NFL's description of its Sunday Ticket package is misleading by saying its greatest use is serving avid fans.
"Through its oversight, the Committee and Subcommittee obtained data showing that despite the NFL’s claims, the Sunday Ticket is largely not a product for the avid fan of NFL football in general; rather, it is a product bought mostly by fans attempting to watch their favorite team who are stuck with no other option," the report reads.
Recent litigation and the Committee’s and Subcommittee’s oversight demonstrate that the NFL’s entire television rights structure and the revenues that come from it is "a house of cards built on an overstretched antitrust exemption."
The report also picks apart the league's contention that 87 percent of its games are available on (free) broadcast television. "In fact, significantly less than half of the games are actually available to a consumer on broadcast television, depending on the week and geographic area," the report reads. "Nonetheless, the NFL claims that Sunday Ticket — and its $480 price tag — is a consumer-friendly product designed for the avid fan."
NFL LAUNCHES LOBBYING BLITZ AT FCC TO DEFEND ITS MEDIA MODEL AS STREAMING SCRUTINY INTENSIFIES
The committee suggests the NFL may face ongoing legislative scrutiny, antitrust challenges, and pressure to change its media model. It suggests the NFL change its model before courts or Congress force it to do so.
The NFL, of course, has repeatedly pushed back on such narratives. And understandably so because its business model is at risk.
If Congress or a court somehow strike down or further limit the current antitrust exemption the league enjoys, it would not be able to sell its product — NFL games — to broadcast and streaming partners as one entity.
The league is able to currently do that and that resulted in a deal worth approximately $110 billion in its latest round of contracts.
Changing the current approach would force the NFL to allow individual teams to sell their own TV rights. The league's revenue-sharing model would collapse, and the league's embrace of competitive parity would likely be upset, because some teams would get bigger TV deals than others, thus becoming more powerful.
This is no small issue for the NFL. It is, as one league source recently told Fox News, "practically everything."