The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has launched a probe into the National Football League (NFL) over potential anticompetitive practices, the government agency has confirmed, investigating whether the franchise forces fans to pay too much in subscription fees to watch NFL games.
The investigation comes halfway through the league’s 11-year media rights deal, which is worth over $10 billion per year. The contract contains an opt-out after the 2029-30 season, but the NFL is attempting to renegotiate early, with new deals projected to top $15 billion per year.
The figures have raised concerns that these deals could diminish payments for other sports rights at a time when many leagues are struggling to secure favourable TV deals. At the same time, consumers are facing rising costs to watch NFL games as the rights are increasingly spread across different TV networks and streaming services that require paid subscriptions. According to estimates from Forbes, the cost of watching every NFL game last season was around $765.
A change of control
Central to the investiation is the 1961 Sports Broadcasting Act, which grants the NFL an antitrust exemption and allows its teams to collectively negotiate packages of TV rights. But as the cost of premium sports rights has surged, and tech companies line up to foot the bill, lawmakers have raised questions about the Act’s applicability in the modern media landscape. In a letter to the DOJ and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) last month, US Senator Mike Lee called for a review into whether the NFL’s distribution methods comply with the legislation.
“The modern distribution environment differs substantially from the conditions that precipitated this exemption,” Lee said in a post on X. “Instead of a small number of free broadcast networks, the NFL now licenses games simultaneously to subscription streaming platforms, premium cable networks, and technology companies operating under different business models. To the extent collectively licensed game packages are placed behind subscription paywalls, these arrangements may no longer align with the statutory concept of sponsored telecasting or the consumer-access rationale underlying the antitrust exemption.”
The breadth of the league’s distribution has indeed expanded significantly in recent years. The franchise’s media rights are now spread across Amazon, CBS, ESPN, Fox and NBC, while Christmas Day games air on Netflix, alongside some international games showing on the ESPN-owned NFL Network. And when Skydance acquired Paramount last year, the NFL took advantage of a “change of control” clause to renegotiate payments with CBS, potentially opening the door to higher payment terms for the other broadcast networks. For consumers this would likely result in higher prices as the TV networks increase their carriage fees to cover their costs, leading to distributors raising the prices of their TV bundles.
An even playing field
Analysts have observed that the NFL has an unusual amount of bargaining power in the cord-cutting era, given the level of viewership the league continues to draw to broadcast TV. Bank of America analysts have described the NFL as the “linchpin holding the linear cable bundle together”, while Nielsen ratings suggest that NFL games made up 83 of the top 100 most-watched US telecasts in 2025.
But the franchise has defended its distribution strategy, calling its media model “the most fan and broadcaster-friendly” in the sports industry. “With over 87 percent of our games on free, broadcast television, including 100 percent of games in the markets of the competing teams, the NFL has for decades put our fans front and centre in how we distribute our content,” the NFL said in a statement. “The 2025 season was our most viewed since 1989 and reflects the strength of the NFL distribution model and its wide availability to all fans.”
But as the NFL’s media contracts face investigation, the changing economics of sports broadcasting could come under closer scrutiny, as TV networks face mounting competition from deep-pocketed (and less regulated) tech companies. As a US Government official told ABC News: “This is about affordability and creating an even playing field for providers.”
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