FCC Chair Thinks NFL Puts Too Many Games on Streaming Services as Trump’s DOJ Opens Probe into Broadcast Deals

FCC Brendan Carr on Tuesday suggested the probe into the NFL’s broadcasting deals stems from the league putting a significant portion of games on streaming services.

Last week, the Department of Justice opened a probe into the NFL to take a closer look at the way the league does business with broadcasters. As part of the league’s current media right deal, it has the right to opt out and renegotiate after the 2029 season. The expectation is that the NFL will opt out and ask for even more than the $10 billion it receives annually from broadcasters.

Over the last few years, the NFL has given streaming networks — like Peacock and Netflix — exclusive access to a handful of games each season. Amazon Prime is also the home of Thursday Night Football.

In a Tuesday morning interview on CNBC, Carr was asked by Sara Eisen what concerned the federal government about the NFL’s broadcasting deals. The FCC chair responded:

I think long-term there’s been a great partnership between broadcasters and sports leagues that’s helped them to grow their fan base; and Americans have enjoyed sitting down after the day, turning on TV, and very quickly — and usually for free — finding their favorite team playing, and that experience has become frustrating for lots of Americans over the years. They feel like they’re paying more out of pocket. They’re having to sign up for different streaming services. So we’re looking at this at the FCC from the perspective of the health of the local broadcast market. We want to make sure that there continues to be the ability for local broadcasters to invest in local news and reporting, which is expensive, so they’re paying too much, ultimately, for NFL rights or other sports rights. That’s a problem.

Eisen then asked Carr if the federal government was trying to “influence” the NFL to give traditional broadcasters a more favorable deal in the next round of negotiations. Although he didn’t agree with that characterization, he did confirm the Trump administration’s position that too many games were being taken away from cable in favor of streaming.

“I don’t know about that,” Carr said, “but I do think there’s a point at which the NFL reaches a tipping point where they’re sticking too many games behind a paywall, in which case it really raises a lot of questions about the scope of that.”

In response to last week’s lawsuit, the NFL released a statement calling its media rights deal “the most fan and broadcaster-friendly in the entire sports and entertainment industry.”

Watch above via CNBC

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