The federal government is concerned that fans of the NFL are being priced out of watching America’s most popular sport. This is a bipartisan issue that escalated in April when it was confirmed that the Department of Justice has opened a formal investigation.
The probe is focused on whether the NFL engaged in alleged anti-competitive practices when securing its television deals, which includes putting some games behind pay-walled streaming platforms. While the nature and scope of the investigation is unknown, reportedly the league’s antitrust exemptions granted through the Sports Broadcasting Act could be under review.
What Is the Sports Broadcasting Act?
Enacted in 1961, the SBA exempts the NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL from the nation’s antitrust laws when it comes to telecasting their matches. The law enables the leagues to blackout home games and sets parameters for when they can air matches so as not to compete with high school and college teams.
But its provisions were established at a time when free over-the-air broadcasting was the only means for television watchers to tune into games played across the country. The pay-TV model for sports programming changed the industry when it was introduced, but streaming has taken distribution to new and more costly heights as game discovery has not only gotten more difficult but has also required consumers to pay more than one platform to watch the teams they love.
The Controversy Over NFL Games On Streaming
In response to the investigation into, and criticism about, its streaming strategy, the NFL released the following statement:
“The NFL’s media distribution model is the most fan and broadcaster-friendly in the entire sports and entertainment industry. 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.”
However, the league’s position doesn’t take into account fan sentiment about the price tag attached to viewership. According to a 2025 survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, over half of America subscribes to streaming services only.
They don’t pay for cable or satellite TV, which means they’re also unlikely to have an antenna that would give them access to the 87% of NFL games that air on broadcast for free. They’re cord-cutters, a population of the television audience that’s expected to increase as streaming continues to dominate the media landscape.
In a 2025 poll, the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that sports fans—defined as individuals who follow sports “extremely” or “very” closely—are more likely to pay for sports-only streaming platforms, cable and satellite TV, Live TV streaming platforms, general streaming services or all the above than their fellow Americans. It’s a difference of 8% to 38% depending on the pay-TV service.
Why The NFL Is Under An Antitrust Probe
The fragmentation of accessibility to NFL games has been frustrating consumers and impacting their wallets.
Based on some estimates, the FCC has stated that in the 2025 season, NFL fans seeking to watch every game may have paid upward of $1,500 to do so. This is because they aired on 10 different services and 20 regular season games were streaming exclusives as was one playoff match. The games availability in their competing markets doesn’t negate this reality.
The NFL, along with the other major sports leagues, is exempt from antitrust laws concerning its television rights. However, the SBA specifically applies to broadcast availability and the encroachment of streaming platforms into the airing of games has created an undue burden on the consumer according to members of Congress such as Senators Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI).
Lee publicly advocated for the DOJ to investigate the NFL. Baldwin has proposed the For the Fans Act, which would prohibit blackouts on league owned streaming services and require professional leagues to provide a free option for local fans to watch their teams play.
The Possible Motivation Behind The NFL Investigation
The probe has put the NFL’s deal making under a microscope and could be a signal that the other major leagues may face their own inquiries. This is because free over-the-air broadcasters are facing a tougher market with streamers becoming more financially enticing options as they expand into sports TV, an arena they’d previously stayed out of until a few years ago.
Big ticket, high viewership games such as season openers, holiday matches, and select playoff bouts are on the table when they were once guaranteed to broadcast for free. The new landscape has made America’s most-watched sport pricey even with the implement of streaming bundles.
The demand for sports programming has allowed the NFL to diversify its distribution model, bypassing the major broadcast networks (and by extension their streaming arms) to expand to streaming platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, and YouTube. But the league holds that it’s meeting consumers where they are.
Hans Schroeder, NFL executive vice president of media distribution, recently told reporters, “We think broadcast [networks] have been an incredible home. And, now, we also know fans are increasingly spending their time on other platforms as well.”
He continued, “They tune into broadcast for the NFL and that’s where we want to be. But we also want to be on these platforms with a limited amount of our games where we know our NFL fans are already as well.”
Schroeder spoke of Netflix specifically, stating: “When we’re going onto Netflix, we’re going onto a platform that is already massively adopted and a huge number of viewers on that platform already, including a huge number of NFL fans.”
But regardless of the NFL’s perspective, the DOJ’s investigation does call into question whether the professional sports leagues will continue to be allowed to negotiate their television rights in a manner that prices fans out of watching and further fragments their availability across multiple pay-walled platforms.
Follow Sabrina Reed on Forbes for more TV and news coverage about what’s coming to a screen near you and what’s happening in Hollywood that affects your wallet and viewing habits.
