The Justice Department has begun an investigation into whether the NFL has violated anticompetitive practices with its television contracts that require consumers to pay subscription costs to watch some games, sources confirmed to ABC News.
“This is about affordability and creating an even playing field for providers,” a government official told ABC News.
The Wall Street Journal first reported the news, writing that the “nature and scope” of the Justice Department’s investigation were unknown.
The NFL has an antitrust exemption for the negotiating of its television contracts through the Sports Broadcast Act of 1961, which only applies to broadcast television. Courts have ruled in the past that it does not apply to other media, including cable, satellite and streaming.
The NFL currently has television contracts with ESPN/ABC, NBC Sports, CBS Sports, Prime Video and Netflix to air its games. Subscriptions are required to watch “Monday Night Football” games on ESPN that aren’t simulcast on ABC, “Thursday Night Football” and the Black Friday game on Prime Video, and Christmas games on Netflix. Some international games also air on NFL Network, which is owned by ESPN. Select postseason games also require subscriptions. The NFL has also awarded select games to ESPN+ and Peacock in the past.
All games, however, air free on the local stations in the broadcast markets of the teams playing.
“The NFL’s media distribution model is the most fan and broadcaster-friendly in the entire sports and entertainment industry,” the NFL said in a statement Thursday. “With over 87% of our games on free, broadcast television, including 100% of games in the markets of the competing teams, the NFL has for decades put our fans front and center in how we distribute our content. 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.”
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), who is the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s 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.
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.
He applauded the investigation on social media Thursday.
“The modern distribution environment differs substantially from the conditions that precipitated this exemption,” Lee wrote in a post to X. “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. 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. That’s why, as chair of the Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights, I urged the DOJ to examine the Sports Broadcasting Act and its applicability to current media landscape. I’m glad they’re tackling this.”
The Justice Department declined comment when contacted by ABC News.
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 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.
The “Sunday Ticket” package is now distributed by YouTube TV.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
