The National Football League has met with the Federal Communications Commission as the league faces scrutiny from federal regulators.
League officials requested the meeting, which took place last Friday in Washington. The FCC recently sought public comments on the ongoing shift of live sports from broadcast channels to streaming services. As of Wednesday, nearly 8,700 comments have been logged.
The NFL's letter about the meeting and its PowerPoint presentation
to the FCC were posted to the FCC's public comment section on sports broadcasting on Wednesday.
The NFL is not alone in creating packages for streamers. Its standing as the most popular league and the revenue it receives from media rights, however, put it front and center in a changing landscape.
The NFL reiterated the benefits of its distribution strategy, including the fact that more than 87% of all games last season were on broadcast television. All games in a team’s home market air on a broadcast network.
“This distribution model is good for our fans, for local television broadcasters, for our 32 clubs in small and large markets alike, and for the competitiveness of the game itself. The success of our fan- and broadcast-friendly strategy is evident as the 2025 season was the most viewed since 1989 and one of the most competitive in League history,” Brendon Plack, the NFL's senior vice president of public policy and government affairs, wrote in a filing recapping the meeting.
Plack was among the officials who represented the NFL at the meeting, a group that also included Hans Schroeder, the executive vice president of media distribution.
The FCC officials included Greg Watson, chief of staff for Chairman Brendan Carr. Carr had used an illustration of a fan watching a Green Bay Packers game when he announced the public comment period on Feb. 25.
Games aired last season on CBS, NBC/Peacock, ABC/ESPN/ESPN+, Fox, NFL Network, Amazon Prime Video, Netflix and YouTube TV.
The league is expected to move at least three more games to streaming as part of a five-game package next season. That would include games on Thanksgiving Eve, a second on Black Friday and Christmas Eve. The Week 1 game between San Francisco and the Los Angeles Rams in Australia on Sept. 10 would also be offered via streaming. The Week 1 games from Brazil the past two seasons were also streamed.
A five-game package could bring the league at least $250 million.
The league averages nearly $11 billion in revenue per season from its media deals. That could increase since the sale of Paramount to Skydance Media allows the league to renegotiate its deal with CBS.
Besides the FCC scrutiny, the Justice Department is investigating the NFL for potential anticompetitive practices.
Congress and other federal agencies have also discussed changes to the Sports Broadcasting Act. Passed by Congress in 1961, it grants professional sports leagues limited antitrust immunity, allowing them to pool their media rights and negotiate as a single entity while protecting them from antitrust lawsuits.
The act 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.
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