Rupert Murdoch’s power play against pro football culminated this week in a House Judiciary Committee hearing regarding the NFL’s broadcast antitrust exemption. The question in the aftermath of the Wednesday session becomes obvious.
What’s next?
At some point, the situation will become specific action aimed at enforcing the limits of the antitrust exemption or scrapping it, or it will continue to be a superficial power play aimed ultimately at pressuring the NFL to not use a streaming company as the “or else” when the league names its price for an extension of Fox’s current TV deal with the league.
John Ourand of Puck added this ominous note at the end of the latest installment of his Varsity newsletter: “The committee report appears to be a precursor to a bill designed to slow down the migration of NFL games to streaming services. In fact, sources on all sides expect some sort of legislation to be introduced within the next few weeks.”
It’s unknown whether the legislation will expressly prevent the NFL from selling games collectively to streamers and other paid platforms (the current law arguably does that already), or whether it will attempt to overturn the entire antitrust exemption.
The House Judiciary Committee has made the point that the broadcast antitrust exemption was adopted at a time when the NFL was struggling financially. Now, 65 years later, it’s the most dominant sport in America. By far.
As Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal argued earlier this year, the time may have come for the NFL to prove why it still deserves a license to shirk the antitrust laws when it comes to selling TV packages. And it’s possible that Murdoch’s leverage game aimed at giving up less than the NFL wants to continue broadcasting its games will take on a life of its own, lighting the fuse on a bomb that could permanently change the way the NFL does business with its broadcast partners.
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