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NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has turned down an invitation to testify before Congress next week amid a Justice Department investigation into the league’s broadcast deals and concern over its practice of airing games on paywalled streaming services.
President Donald Trump recently launched a blistering attack on the NFL, claiming the league is ‘killing the golden goose.’
‘It’s tough,’ the president said. ‘You’ve got people that love football. They don’t make enough money to go and pay for this… there’s something very sad when they take football away from many, many people. Very sad. I don’t like it.’
But Goodell declined the chance to appear at a House Judiciary Committee hearing on June 10 ‘due to ongoing litigation related to the topic of the hearing,’ the league told committee chairman, Republican congressman Jim Jordan.
The NFL broadcasts on free-to-air TV networks such as CBS, NBC, FOX and ABC. But Netflix is increasingly growing its portfolio, while Amazon Prime Video and Peacock also hold rights.
Jordan is one of several elected officials to have raised concerns about the prices fans have to pay to watch NFL games.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has turned down an invitation to testify before Congress
The NFL has come under fire over its broadcast deals and use of paywalled streaming services
Donald Trump launched a blistering attack on the league, claim it is ‘killing the golden goose’
Questions have also been raised about whether the league’s streaming deals comply with the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961, which granted the league a limited antitrust exemption.
The law applies only to broadcast networks. Courts have ruled in the past that it does not apply to other media, including cable, satellite and streaming. There has been bipartisan sentiment in favor of updating the law.
This spring, the Justice Department began investigating the NFL for potential anticompetitive practices related to its broadcast deals.
In the letter to Jordan, the league’s general counsel, Ted Ullyot, said 87 per cent of the league’s games will be available over the air this season, and that every game in the competing teams’ home markets is on broadcast television.
He said the increased number of games on streaming services has corresponded with a slight drop in games shown on cable.
‘The NFL’s decision to license a few more games to widely adopted streaming services is simply a reflection that those platforms now offer significantly more reach than the current pay TV ecosystem and that broadcast television remains the foundation of our media distribution,’ Ullyot wrote.
The league also sent a letter to Jordan signed by 21 members of Congress urging caution with any changes to the broadcasting law.
Ullyot’s letter said the SBA helps maintain competitive balance because it supports ‘broad media distribution, substantial revenue sharing among the clubs, and a collectively bargained salary cap.’
‘If the league were not to handle media distribution as it has since the passage of the SBA,’ the letter said, ‘the result would be to harm NFL fans through increased cost and confusion and the undermining of the competitive balance that makes NFL games so exciting.’
