NAB, Clay Travis Urge Congress To Modernize Sports Broadcasting Rules.

Congress may be moving closer to revisiting the Sports Broadcasting Act, and broadcasters are using the moment to argue that sports leagues have strayed far from the bargain lawmakers struck when they granted professional sports a special antitrust exemption 65 years ago.

At a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing Wednesday, National Association of Broadcasters President/CEO Curtis LeGeyt urged lawmakers to reaffirm that the Sports Broadcasting Act applies only to free, over-the-air broadcasting and not to subscription streaming services that increasingly hold exclusive rights to major sporting events.

“The committee needs to reaffirm the scope of this act,” LeGeyt told lawmakers. “We’re not here to scrutinize the NFL business practices. We’re here to affirm that if they want to take advantage of an antitrust exemption granted to them by this body, that there are certain public interest obligations that went along with that, and there’s a clearly defined scope.”

The hearing followed release of a House Judiciary Committee report that accuses the NFL of stretching the law’s antitrust protections beyond their original purpose while forcing fans into a growing number of paid television and streaming subscriptions.

The Sports Broadcasting Act was enacted in 1961 after courts blocked the NFL from collectively selling television rights. Congress responded by creating a narrow antitrust exemption that allowed leagues to pool broadcast rights for free, over-the-air television. The arrangement helped build professional sports into a national business while ensuring broad public access to games.

“For decades, that bargain worked,” LeGeyt said. But he believes that balance is increasingly disappearing as marquee games are increasingly moving behind streaming paywalls.

“This was not the broad access that Congress contemplated when they granted the major sports leagues the rare and valuable antitrust exemption,” LeGeyt testified.

NAB’s concerns center not only on consumer costs but also on the role sports programming plays in supporting local broadcasting as sports remain among the highest-rated programs on television and often serve as a key driver of audience and advertising revenue.

The hearing featured testimony from Clay Travis, founder of OutKick and co-host of Premiere Network’s nationally syndicated “Clay and Buck” radio show. Drawing on his own experience as a longtime sports media personality and radio host, Travis told lawmakers the marketplace is no longer serving sports fans.

“For too many of us across the country, sports fandom has become both unaffordable and inaccessible,” Travis said. He urged lawmakers to update the Sports Broadcasting Act for the streaming era.

The committee’s newly released report focuses heavily on the NFL’s Sunday Ticket package. According to survey data obtained by the committee, more than 70% of former subscribers said they purchased the package primarily to watch an out-of-market favorite team. Lawmakers contend those findings undermine NFL claims that Sunday Ticket primarily serves super-fans seeking access to every game.

House Judiciary Subcommittee Chairman Scott Fitzgerald (R-WI) said lawmakers need to determine whether sports leagues have honored the public-interest rationale that justified the exemption in the first place. “The NFL seems to have lost sight of the original purpose of the legislation, and in fact they may even be in violation of the law right now,” he said.

FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez agreed the growing migration of sports programming to streaming platforms is creating challenges for consumers and broadcasters alike. She said the FCC has a legitimate interest in studying its impact, but noted that any meaningful changes to the law would ultimately require congressional action.

At the same time, Gomez said the debate over sports broadcasting is unfolding amid a wave of media consolidation. She urged lawmakers to consider who controls the media companies acquiring valuable sports rights and the potential impact those ownership changes could have, arguing that the issue should be viewed within “a much broader set of concerns about who controls the media that carries these games and what they are doing with that power.”