The NFL isn’t waiting around. The league met last week with senior FCC officials to defend its media-rights approach amid growing federal scrutiny, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal.
The meeting, requested by the NFL, followed the FCC’s probe into sports media’s streaming shift. The Justice Department is also investigating whether leagues are engaging in anticompetitive practices.
According to the report, NFL media chief Hans Schroeder led the presentation. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr greeted league officials before handing off to his advisers. Carr has publicly targeted sports leagues over the streaming migration.
Schroeder defended the NFL’s 65-year-old antitrust exemption, which lets the league negotiate rights for all 32 teams collectively. The league argued that individual team negotiations would create more viewer confusion and higher costs.
The numbers back the NFL’s position. Schroeder said 87% of NFL games air on broadcast TV via CBS, NBC, Fox, and ABC. Even streaming deals include local market simulcasts.
“Facts are stubborn things,” Schroeder said.
The FCC isn’t fully convinced. In February, the agency warned that streaming’s growth could hurt local broadcasters’ ability to serve their communities, including producing local news. Fox Corp echoed those concerns, telling the FCC that making streaming “the default viewing option for live sports could have devastating consequences for consumers and broadcast stations alike.”
Schroeder pushed back, calling the NFL’s streaming expansion measured.
“Even as we’ve gone on to new platforms like Netflix or Amazon…we are doing so in a very selective and appropriate way,” he said.
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