NFL Defends Media Distribution Strategy Amid FCC, DOJ Scrutiny

A Christmas Day NFL game between the Denver Broncos and Kansas City Chiefs last year. NFL teams have increasingly produced their own media content. (Photo by Scott Winters/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

The National Football League is going on offense as regulators from the Department of Justice and Federal Communications Commission are scrutinizing the company’s practices and media rights strategy and how sports’ shift to streaming is impacting consumers.

NFL executives Ted Ullyot, Hans Schroeder and Jeff Miller met with FCC chairman Brendan Carr’s chief of staff Greg Watson and attorney advisor Allison Howell, as well as the FCC Media Bureau’s Deputy Bureau Chief Evan Morris on April 17 to discuss its distribution approach for its live games and how it benefits fans and local broadcasters.

“Since its founding, the NFL has strived to put its fans at the center of everything we do. Nowhere is that more evident than in the NFL’s media distribution strategy, which for more than 50 years has served as a foundation and catalyst for the League’s growth and popularity,” the league wrote in a Tuesday letter. “While nothing can replace the excitement of attending a game, the vast majority of fans rely on this media distribution model to watch live games and follow the sport they love.”

The league noted that it has relied on free, over-the-air broadcast television as the primary means of distributing its games to over 200 million fans in the U.S.

“For many years, 100% of NFL games have aired on broadcast television in the home markets of the competing teams. Most of those games are distributed to a significantly broader geographic area, if not nationally,” the letter continues. “Our
contracts with ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC account for the distribution of more than 87% of all NFL games, a number that has varied little in the past two decades. 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.”