The NFL’s pivot to streaming isn’t as seamless as the league would hope.
Ditching free TV for an ever-expanding array of fee-based platforms has sparked multiple forms of governmental scrutiny.
Most recently, the FCC has opened an inquiry regarding the ongoing migration of live sports to streaming. The agency seeks public comment on the trend.
Via Deadline.com, the FCC poses questions such as these: “To what extent do current sports media rights contracts conflict with or impede TV broadcasters from meeting their public interest obligations? How should these arrangements be considered in the context of broadcasters’ public interest obligations and the FCC’s duty to ensure licensees meet their statutory requirements?”
The FCC observed that NFL games are broadcast by 10 different services, “which, according to some estimates, could cost a consumer over $1,500 to watch all games.”
Last August, the House Judiciary Committee explored whether and to what extent streaming meshes with the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1960, which provides the NFL and other professional sports leagues with an antitrust exemption when it comes to selling rights in a bundle. For years, questions have lingered as to whether the exemption applies beyond over-the-air broadcast methods, to cable, satellite, and/or streaming.
In May 2025, the Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing on sports streaming, with Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) accusing the NFL of “tiptoeing up to the line” regarding the requirement that games not be televised on Friday nights or Saturdays from the middle of September through the middle of December.
Through it all, the NFL continues to push more and more games to streaming, which pulls more and more streamers to the table for the next wave of broadcast deals. Which could remove more games from free TV and move them to pay TV.
Which is ironic, given the NFL’s position from 2014, when the league enlisted Hall of Famer Lynn Swann to lead the charge against an assault on the blackout rule, in order to (as Swann said at the time) “protect the game so the widest number of people possible can view it and keep it on free TV for those people who don’t buy cable packages.”
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