Federal regulators and members of Congress are voicing frustration with the NFL’s media rights dealmaking and are vowing to rein in its unmatched leverage in the live sports marketplace.
The Roger Goodell-led pro football league is reportedly the subject of an investigation by President Trump’s Department of Justice (DOJ), with regulators alleging it engaged in anticompetitive behavior when negotiating its recent record-breaking deals providing the rights to several companies to broadcast its games.
The most popular and profitable sports league in the world by a wide margin, the NFL raked in more than $110 billion with its most recent broadcast rights agreements and has for decades partnered with legacy media behemoths like Fox, CBS and Disney to show its games over linear broadcast channels on Sunday afternoons and in primetime.
But in a new era of sports broadcasting that now involves streaming and tech companies with deep pockets, new questions are emerging about how the NFL does business and what that means for consumers.
NFL games are increasingly locked behind paywalls, making it more expensive for fans to watch their favorite teams. Fans who wished to watch every NFL game last season had to pay upwards of $1,000 and subscribe to 10 services to do so, according to estimates by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
