The Justice Department is investigating the NFL for potential anticompetitive practices, according to a government official.
The official, who was not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation by name and spoke on condition of anonymity Thursday, said the investigation is “about affordability for consumers and creating an even playing field for providers.”
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The investigation was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
The NFL has not received a notification that the league is being investigated, according to two other people with knowledge of the situation. Those people spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak on possible legal matters.
The investigation comes amid increasing federal scrutiny of the amount of money fans are paying to watch sports on television. The Federal Communications Commission, for example, is seeking public comments on the ongoing shift of live sports from broadcast channels to streaming services.
The NFL said in a statement Thursday that over 87% of its games are available on broadcast television, including all that are played in a team's local market.
“The NFL’s media distribution model is the most fan and broadcaster-friendly in the entire sports and entertainment industry. The 2025 season was our most viewed since 1989 and reflects the strength of the NFL distribution model and its wide availability to all fans," the league said in its statement.
Utah Sen. Mike Lee, chair of the Senate judiciary subcommittee on antitrust, competition policy, and consumer rights, wrote a letter to the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission on March 3 urging them to review whether the NFL’s distribution methods are in line with the Sports Broadcasting Act, which grants limited antitrust immunity to allow teams to collectively license game broadcasts to national networks.
"The modern distribution environment differs substantially from the conditions that precipitated this exemption. Instead of a small number of free broadcast networks, the NFL now licenses games simultaneously to subscription streaming platforms, premium cable networks, and technology companies operating under different business models,” the Republican senator wrote. “To the extent collectively licensed game packages are placed behind subscription paywalls, these arrangements may no longer align with the statutory concept of sponsored telecasting or the consumer-access rationale underlying the antitrust exemption.”
Lee said in his letter that football fans spent almost $1,000 on cable and streaming subscriptions. Forbes estimated the cost of watching every NFL game via streaming last season at $765.
The NFL aired games last season on CBS, NBC, ABC/ESPN/ESPN+, Fox, NFL Network, Amazon Prime Video, Netflix and YouTube TV.
The league averages nearly $11 billion per season in revenue from its media deals. That could increase since the sale of Paramount to Skydance Media allows the league to renegotiate its deal with CBS.
The rights deals go through 2033 with most outlets and 2034 with ESPN. The league has an opt-out clause after the 2029 season, which it is likely to exercise since 83 of the top 100 broadcasts last year were NFL games, according to Nielsen.
The Sports Broadcasting Act exemption passed in 1961 applies only to broadcast television. Courts have ruled in the past that it does not apply to other media, including cable, satellite and streaming.
The Sports Broadcasting Act includes a rule allowing blackouts of local games, which still applies to out-of-market packages sold by the league. The NFL ended local TV blackouts, which applied to games within 75 miles of a team’s market if they did not sell out 72 hours before kickoff, after the 2014 season.
Last year, the House Judiciary Committee requested briefings from the NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB on whether antitrust exemptions should still be granted for coordinating their broadcast television rights.
All four of the major North American professional sports leagues have deals with streaming platforms.
In 2024, a jury in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles ruled the NFL violated antitrust laws in distributing out-of-market Sunday afternoon games on a premium subscription service and awarded $4.7 billion in damages.
A federal judge overturned the verdict in the class-action lawsuit because the testimony of two witnesses for the subscribers had flawed methodologies and should have been excluded.
The lawsuit covered 2.4 million residential subscribers and 48,000 businesses in the United States who paid for the “Sunday Ticket” package on DirecTV of out-of-market games from the 2011 through 2022 seasons.
Because damages can be tripled under federal antitrust laws, the NFL could have been liable for $14,121,779,833.92.
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Reedy reported from Cleveland and Tucker from Washington.
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AP sports: https://apnews.com/sports