NFL got routed on Capitol Hill after Roger Goodell declined to testify at House Judiciary hearing
The House Judiciary Committee hearing on whether major sports leagues, the NFL in particular, benefit consumers or are violating the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 by funneling games behind increasingly expensive paywalls, was a one-sided debate.
During the two-hour hearing, Republicans and Democrats on the committee did something rarely seen in Washington, D.C. these days: They mostly agreed.
Then another rare sight, as if seeing one unicorn wasn't enough ... the witnesses invited to testify all came at the issue pretty much on the same side and they were generally not interrupted by committee members eager to reclaim their time.
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It was like watching an All-Pro team bulldoze a roster of undrafted free agents who decided not to step on the field.
And the NFL was the latter in this scenario because Commissioner Roger Goodell was invited to testify but declined. And the league didn't have anyone advocating on its behalf.
When Fox News Digital reached out to the NFL after the hearing to request its side of the matter, there was no response. The NFL went dark on all matters relative to this important hearing.
And the sense here is the league may come to regret going mute because the calls to stop it from diverting its games onto pay streaming services were loud behind microphones. The consumer complaints about rising prices for watching games on those streaming sites were multifold and unopposed.
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So, the NFL got routed on this afternoon on Capitol Hill.
Member after member laid out concerns about the major sports leagues in general and the NFL in particular enjoying antitrust exemption provided by the Sports Broadcasting Act, while running their business outside the bounds of the Act's antitrust exemption that protects them.
Judiciary Subcommittee on Administrative State, Regulatory Reform and Antitrust Chairman Rep. Scott Fitzgerald, R-Wis., explained what the SBA was supposed to do.
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"Congress believed that joint television agreements would help make games more widely available to the public," Fitzgerald said in his opening statement. "It also would preserve the competitive balance among the teams and keep the professional sports league financially viable.
"In exchange, Congress sought to maximize the public interest by limiting the exemption to only "sponsored telecasting," insuring fans would have access to their favorite sports teams. Sixty-five years later, however, it is fair for this body to ask whether the professional sports leagues have kept up their end of the bargain. In my opinion they have not and sports fans are paying the price because of it."
Fitzgerald took a carving knife to the league's claim that 100 percent of its "local market games" are available free, over-the-air and 87 percent of games have "primary distribution" on broadcast television.
Fitzgerald showed a clipping from the Sunday Ticket's own website that tries to convince consumers to purchase the product by warning that in the season's first month "94% of teams tend to have games on CBS and FOX that are shown to less than half the country."
So, Sunday Ticket's pitch to fans directly contradicts the NFL's claims.
And what did the NFL say to that?
Nothing — because Goodell declined to testify, no one else took his place to represent the interest of the league, and the NFL didn't wish to comment on the matter.
Curtis LeGeyt, the president and CEO of the National Association of Broadcasters, came to the hearing to advocate for America's free local television and radio stations.
"The NAB is not asking to repeal the Sports Broadcasting Act," LeGeyt said. "What we are asking is for the committee to affirm its guardrails that it is meant to govern the negotiations between the league and broadcasters. It is not meant to enable sports to be hidden behind paywalls."
LeGeyt also said the law is being "misused" and he called on the committee to ensure it is enforced.
The NFL, of course, had no one present to push back on the idea it is breaking the law. It had no one to argue that millions of Americans are already behind those so-called paywalls and that a new generation of people don't patronize over-the-air TV.
And the reason the NFL couldn't make that point is why? Because Goodell declined the committee's invitation to do so and the NFL found no ally in this hearing.
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Fox News contributor and OutKick founder Clay Travis brought to the committee the kind of populist thinking that turned his site into a rising star in the media landscape.
"All of this," Travis said in his opening statement, "should be examined through the prism of the reasonable sports fan, people like me and your constituents, regular fans, who just want to be able to watch their favorite teams for a reasonable price without being extorted."
Travis highlighted what is happening in Buffalo now and the second week of the NFL season. The Bills will play their first-ever game in their new stadium on Sept. 17, 2026, against the Detroit Lions on Thursday Night Football.
Buffalo's new $2.2 billion stadium that will host the game was funded, in part, by New York taxpayers who are paying $600 million and Erie County taxpayers who are paying another $200 million.
But while the game will be broadcast free over the air in the Buffalo TV market, Bills fans in nearby Rochester and Syracuse, who are helping to fund the facility with their tax dollars, will need to have an Amazon Prime Video membership to watch the streaming broadcast.
They are being taxed to pay for the stadium. And they must pay to watch the game from home.
And what did the NFL say in response to this apparent unfair situation? You guessed it. Nothing.