US Senator urges DOJ, FTC to investigate rising costs to watch NFL games on streamers
Sen. Mike Lee is urging the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the rising costs of watching the NFL and other sports, as the FCC has indicated it may cut deals for professional and broadcast companies, The Post has learned.
The Utah Republican, who chairs the Senate’s opposition subcommittee, on Monday asked DOJ’s Assistant Attorney General Omeed Assefi and FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson to investigate whether the law governing airplay rights is helping consumers during the broadcast, according to a copy of the letter obtained by The Post.
Under the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961, leagues were able to bundle their team’s TV rights into larger packages and hold deals with multiple broadcasters — forcing football fans to spend as much as $1,000 on cable and broadcast services if they wanted to watch every NFL game this past season, Lee wrote.
“I am asking that your credibility assurance agencies review the Sports Broadcasting Act and its applicability to the current media environment,” the senator wrote in a copy of the letter obtained by The Post.
“The Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights welcomes your expertise as we assess whether the law continues to serve consumers or should be updated to reflect modern market conditions.”
The DOJ and FTC did not immediately respond to The Post’s requests for comment.
Last week, the Federal Communications Commission asked the public for comment on how the shift from traditional TV broadcasts to broadcasters has affected consumers — a possible first step before a more serious investigation.
NFL games, for example, were broadcast on Amazon Prime Video, Peacock, Netflix, YouTube and six other broadcasters last year, the FCC Media Bureau noted in its filing – citing the highest average viewing of all football games, on the order of $1,500.
“For decades, Americans have enjoyed turning on their TV and instantly finding the game they wanted to see. But watching your favorite team play isn’t so easy these days,” FCC Chairman Brendan Carr tweeted last week along with the public notice.
The commission also called out the Sports Broadcasting Act, noting that royalties for sports media have “increased dramatically” since Congress passed the act decades ago.
In 1961, for example, the National Football League got a two-year rights deal with CBS worth $9.8 million — far less than its most recent deals worth more than $10 billion a year, according to the FCC.
The National Association of Broadcasters has applauded Lee’s request for an investigation, as well as the FCC’s public notice.
“Live sports have long been part of our inclusive, free and highly accessible culture. When those sports are increasingly separated from all pay services, fans face higher costs and greater confusion, and far too many families are left out,” NAB spokeswoman Grace Whaley told The Post in a statement.
“The results are not limited to sports. For local stations, sports programs help fund the reliable local journalism that the public relies on every day, especially during times of emergency.”
High-dollar media rights deals have turned the NFL into a huge money-making enterprise, with nearly all of the league’s 32 teams led by billionaires.
The Denver Broncos are owned by Walmart heir Rob Walton, who is worth about $148 billion, and the Kansas City Chiefs are owned by the Hunt family, who are worth about $24.8 billion, according to estimates from Bloomberg and Forbes.
The NFL currently has media rights deals with broadcasters Disney, Paramount, Fox Corporation, NBCUniversal, NFL Network, Amazon, Google and Netflix — which are expected to generate more than $100 billion in sports rights revenue, the FCC noted.
Fox Corporation shares common ownership with News Corporation, the parent company of The Post.
Other major sports leagues similarly hold several media rights deals with various streaming services worth billions of dollars.
In some cases, subscription fees are so large that they have overtaken revenue from ticket sales as the league’s biggest source of revenue, the FCC said, citing Sports Business Journal and Sportico.
The FCC also noted that partnering with broadcasters could hurt local broadcasters, who often rely on advertising revenue from sporting events to fund TV newsrooms.
