Two members of the House Judiciary Committee on Monday sent letters to the commissioners of the four major U.S. men’s sports — MLB, the NBA, NFL and NHL — about the cost and difficulty of watching sporting events in the streaming era. A day later, however, Ohio Republican Jim Jordan, the committee chair and one of the letters’ signees, said it’s not clear yet whether the committee will bring officials from those leagues to Capitol Hill for a hearing.
“We always say everything’s on the table,” Jordan said by phone Tuesday. “That includes hearings, that includes maybe legislation. We don’t know. We haven’t decided on any of that. We’re just at the first step, which is, what exactly is going on out there? How much does it really cost to the average fan?”
Competing streaming services have fractured the landscape for viewers, who typically need several expensive packages to watch the entirety of a team’s season.
The letters the Congressmen sent challenge the leagues to defend the antitrust protection they are afforded by the Sports Broadcasting Act, or SBA, passed by Congress in 1961 — something different from an oft-referenced exemption unique to baseball, which stems from a 1922 Supreme Court decision.
The SBA permits teams in each league to come together and sell their TV rights en masse. In most other industries, individual businesses inside the same industry would run the risk of antitrust violations when making business deals in concert.
“These leagues are making all kinds of money,” Jordan said. “Is this complicated, expensive system really what’s best when they have this antitrust exemption right now?”
MLB said Tuesday it will be responsive to the committee members’ request, which was co-signed by Rep. Scott Fitzgerald, a Wisconsin Republican who heads up the committee’s antitrust inquiries. The NHL declined comment. The NBA and NFL did not immediately return a request for comment.
The NBA last year agreed to deals with Amazon, ESPN and NBC worth $77 billion collectively, a model that MLB hopes to replicate when its national TV deals expire following the 2028 season. Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred is pushing for his office to gain greater control of regular-season TV rights that teams have typically sold independently so he can create more robust national packages.
“I think it’s very important — in fact, crucial — that when we go to the market for our post-‘28 deals,” Manfred said last month, “that we have the ability to say to our broadcast partner, ‘We have all these rights: what have traditionally been our national (rights), what have traditionally been our local. Let’s cut them up in a way that is the best in terms of reaching our fans and maximizing our revenue.’”
Jordan said Tuesday he did not yet know what specific changes he’d like made to the sports TV model.
This is not the first time this year that Congress has made an issue of sports viewership.
The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, chaired by another Republican, Ted Cruz, called the four major U.S. men’s leagues to the mat in May. Officials from three of the four leagues attended that committee’s hearing, with the NFL holding out.
“I haven’t looked closely at what Senator Cruz and the Commerce Committee has done there,” Jordan said. “Maybe our staffs have (talked) a little bit.”
The cost to watch sporting events speaks to many voters, potentially creating political capital for elected officials who raise it, but officials have also rarely taken action on antitrust matters in sports. Jordan allowed for the possibility that change would not follow here, either.
“I never thought we’d get the designated hitter,” Jordan said. “I never thought I’d see a guy pitch and hit home runs like (Shohei) Ohtani does. … There’s always change. All I’m saying is, we feel like it’s important to look into it. Everything’s on the table. And when I say everything, I mean it.”
(Photo: Joseph Weiser / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)