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Today β€” 11 June 2026Channel-Sport

House Judiciary Committee raises difficult antitrust questions for NFL during hearing

Dec 28, 2024; Inglewood, California, USA; The NFL shield logo is seen on the field at SoFi Stadium before a game between the Arizona Cardinals and Los Angeles Rams. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images
Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell opted not to testify in front of a House Judiciary subcommittee on Wednesday, perhaps for good reason.

During the over two-hour hearing, members of the subcommittee laid out a compelling case that the NFL has potentially run afoul of the antitrust exemption it is afforded under the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961. The exemption allows the league to pool television rights among its 32 franchises and sell them in consolidated packages to broadcasters.

Of particular interest throughout the hearing were the inconsistencies between how the NFL markets its out-of-market Sunday Ticket package, and who the league has argued in court that Sunday Ticket is designed for.

Throughout the now decade-long class-action lawsuit alleging antitrust violations against the NFL for how it packages Sunday Ticket, the league has argued it is a premium product designed for avid fans looking to watch as many games as possible, and is priced accordingly. However, marketing efforts by the NFL have been targeted towards out-of-market fans who simply want to watch their favorite teams play when those games aren’t available in their area.

During his opening remarks, Rep. Scott Fitzgerald (R-WI), chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Administrative State, Regulatory Reform, and Antitrust, cited an example of this targeted advertising from the NFL.

β€œFans are subjected to arbitrary restrictions, imposed by the NFL, that force them into buying a premium subscription model,” Fitzgerald asserted. β€œThis is precisely why NFL Sunday Ticket is advertised to fans as necessary to ensure they can watch every regular-season game of their favorite team,” he continued, as a screenshot of NFL Sunday Ticket marketing materials showed the league targeting out-of-market fans looking to ensure access to their favorite teams.

A report issued by the committee earlier this week found that 70% of fans who signed up for Sunday Ticket did so in order to watch their favorite team, which is not located in their home market. By contrast, only one-third of Sunday Ticket subscribers purchased the package to watch as many games as possible.

OutKick founder Clay Travis, who was called as an expert witness, said in his opening testimony, β€œAll of this 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.”

Several elected officials pointed towards the college football broadcast model as a more consumer friendly approach. Each Saturday, numerous college football games are played across a variety of networks, without regionalization preventing, say, a Texas Longhorns fan in Los Angeles from watching his/her favorite team.

There is, of course, an irony at play here considering college sports are seeking similar antitrust protections from Congress at the moment.

Nevertheless, compelling arguments as to why the NFL may be in violation of antitrust law were abundant in this hearing. Plenty was said about how the Sports Broadcasting Act was written at a time when legislators could not conceive of the modern media landscape we have today. There were questions about whether the act, which designates the antitrust exemption for β€œsponsored telecasts,” (or, in today’s parlance, over-the-air broadcast) even applies to games distributed via cable, satellite, or streaming.

But while all of the conversation was couched with the pretense of looking out for the consumer, there was little discussion about what the NFL’s broadcast landscape would look like absent the exemption, which could accelerate the fragmentation of game broadcasts to new levels. Granted, there was some discussion that the exemption could be revisited, rather than revoked, to include modern provisions ensuring accessibility and affordability of game broadcasts.

Certainly for the NFL, the most concerning aspects of this hearing revolved around its Sunday Ticket package. There seemed to be a consensus among elected officials and the four witnesses testifying that the league should be providing an affordable single-team subscription offering for fans, rather than limiting out-of-market options to the all-inclusive premium product that is Sunday Ticket.

With the possibility that the Ninth Circuit could imminently revive the Sunday Ticket lawsuit against the NFL after a judge overturned an initial jury ruling which had the NFL liable for over $14 billion in damages, this added attention on Sunday Ticket’s specific role in potential antitrust violations will not be welcomed by the league.

The post House Judiciary Committee raises difficult antitrust questions for NFL during hearing appeared first on Awful Announcing.

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