Scathing House Judiciary Committee report accuses NFL of stretching law's limited antitrust exemption

A scathing study released connected Monday by the House Judiciary Committee and its president Jim Jordan, takes the NFL to task, arguing that America's astir fashionable sports league has ignored the constrictive guardrails of the 1961 Sports Broadcasting Act and its antitrust exemption portion connected a travel to becoming a lucrative sports empire.

All portion limiting user choices and inflating prices for viewing games.

The report, obtained by Fox News, includes the cardinal statement connected pages 8–9 that Congress created the Sports Broadcasting Act (SBA) to support games wide disposable connected escaped tv and assistance a struggling league survive.

But what has happened since 1961, lawmakers argue, is that the antitrust exemption created to assistance the NFL alternatively created 1 of the astir almighty sports media businesses successful the satellite that stretched the constrictive boundaries of the exemption.

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, president of the House Judiciary Committee, and Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., ranking member, be a proceeding successful Washington, D.C., connected Jan. 22, 2026. (Kent Nishimura/Bloomberg)

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You cognize the study wasn't going to beryllium affable to the NFL by simply speechmaking the title.

The Sports Broadcasting Act: A special-interest antitrust exemption gone awry.

The report, astatine its heart, zeroes successful connected the league's Sunday Ticket offering. It highlights grounds from the ongoing Sunday Ticket antitrust case, including a 2024 assemblage verdict that recovered the NFL violated antitrust instrumentality and awarded much than $4.796 cardinal successful damages to plaintiffs. That verdict was aboriginal vacated by a judge, wrongfully so, according to the report.

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The study besides cites interior information suggesting astir Sunday Ticket subscribers aren't "avid fans who privation each game," but alternatively fans trying to ticker 1 out-of-market team."

Streaming work EverPass Media announced it volition go the exclusive commercialized supplier for NFL Sunday Ticket starting with the 2026 season. (Aaron M. Sprecher/Getty Images)

Page 18 of the study is particularly troubling for the NFL comparative to its decisions with The Sunday Ticket package. It outlines that:

• ESPN reportedly projected a Sunday Ticket bundle priced astir $70 per season.
• According to documents cited successful the report, the NFL objected to the little terms point.
• The NFL besides opposed a team-by-team acquisition enactment that would person allowed fans to bargain lone their favourite team's games.
• The study argues these decisions constricted user prime and kept fans locked into a much costly bundle.

The Committee and Subcommittee person been examining the NFL’s behaviour regarding its agreements with broadcast, cable, and streaming organisation channels and weighing however they acceptable wrong the constrictive antitrust exemption provided by the SBA.

And the findings?

The NFL's statement of its Sunday Ticket bundle is misleading by saying its top usage is serving avid fans.

"Through its oversight, the Committee and Subcommittee obtained information showing that contempt the NFL’s claims, the Sunday Ticket is mostly not a merchandise for the avid instrumentality of NFL shot successful general; rather, it is simply a merchandise bought mostly by fans attempting to ticker their favourite squad who are stuck with nary different option," the study reads.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell welcomes fans to the 2025 NFL Draft earlier the archetypal circular connected April 24, 2025, astatine Lambeau Field successful Green Bay, Wis. (Tork Mason/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin)

Recent litigation and the Committee’s and Subcommittee’s oversight show that the NFL’s full tv rights operation and the revenues that travel from it is "a location of cards built connected an overstretched antitrust exemption."

The study besides picks isolated the league's contention that 87 percent of its games are disposable connected (free) broadcast television. "In fact, importantly little than fractional of the games are really disposable to a user connected broadcast television, depending connected the week and geographic area," the study reads. "Nonetheless, the NFL claims that Sunday Ticket — and its $480 terms tag — is simply a consumer-friendly merchandise designed for the avid fan."

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The committee suggests the NFL whitethorn look ongoing legislative scrutiny, antitrust challenges, and unit to alteration its media model. It suggests the NFL alteration its exemplary earlier courts oregon Congress unit it to bash so.

The NFL, of course, has repeatedly pushed backmost connected specified narratives. And understandably truthful due to the fact that its concern exemplary is astatine risk.

If Congress oregon a tribunal someway onslaught down oregon further bounds the existent antitrust exemption the league enjoys, it would not beryllium capable to merchantability its merchandise — NFL games — to broadcast and streaming partners arsenic 1 entity.

The league is capable to presently bash that and that resulted successful a woody worthy astir $110 cardinal successful its latest circular of contracts.

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Changing the existent attack would unit the NFL to let idiosyncratic teams to merchantability their ain TV rights. The league's revenue-sharing exemplary would collapse, and the league's clasp of competitory parity would apt beryllium upset, due to the fact that immoderate teams would get bigger TV deals than others, frankincense becoming much powerful.

This is nary tiny contented for the NFL. It is, arsenic 1 league root precocious told Fox News, "practically everything."

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