Lawmakers allege DOJ's NFL antitrust probe aims to benefit Fox
A U.S. lawmaker alleges that a Department of Justice antitrust investigation into the NFL's broadcast rights is influenced by Fox Corp. and its chairman emeritus, Rupert Murdoch, to secure a better deal for the company. This suggests powerful media companies may be influencing government agencies' scrutiny of sports streaming deals, potentially impacting future content distribution strategies for streaming professionals. The Federal Communications Commission has also opened a review into the issue.
Key Takeaways
- Representative Jamie Raskin claims Fox Chairman Emeritus Rupert Murdoch personally lobbied for a crackdown on NFL streaming deals during a White House dinner.
- The Department of Justice is investigating whether the NFL's shift of live games to subscription services constitutes anticompetitive behavior.
- The NFL maintains that 87% of its games remain on free broadcast television and 100% are available on local over-the-air channels.
- Broadcasters like Fox and Sinclair urged the FCC in March to address the rise of Big Tech sports rights to protect local TV news sustainability.
Why It Matters
The intersection of regulatory scrutiny and legacy media lobbying threatens to disrupt the established bidding war for premium sports rights. If the DOJ or FCC enforces changes to the 1961 Sports Broadcasting Act, the leverage of streaming giants like Amazon and Netflix could be significantly curtailed to benefit traditional broadcasters. This would freeze the current migration of high-value inventory to digital-only platforms and likely depress future rights valuations. For the broader ecosystem, it signals a shift from purely market-driven negotiations to a politically charged environment where technical distribution methods carry regulatory risk. Watch for whether the FCC issues a formal Notice of Proposed Rulemaking regarding sports fragmentation and broadcast exclusivity in late 2026.
Additional Context
The federal scrutiny follows a surge in sports rights spending by streaming platforms, which reached an estimated $12.5 billion in 2025 according to Houlihan Lokey. This 25% year-over-year increase is driven by aggressive entries from Netflix, which secured exclusive Christmas Day NFL windows, and Amazon, which transformed 'Thursday Night Football' into a technical proving ground. Per various reports from April 2026, the DOJ's specific focus is on whether the NFL is misinterpreting the narrow antitrust carve-out of the 1961 Sports Broadcasting Act, which was originally intended solely for free over-the-air television, not subscription-gated digital services.
Legislative momentum is also building outside of the executive branch. In June 2026, sources cited by Puck's John Ourand indicated that new legislation to reform the Sports Broadcasting Act is expected in the coming weeks. This follows the introduction of the 'For the Fans Act' by Senator Tammy Baldwin in April 2026, which aims to mandate free local streaming or broadcast access for all professional games. These moves come as broadcasters face existential pressure; per YouTube and industry analysts in May 2026, companies like Fox are viewed as increasingly vulnerable because they lack the massive market caps of tech rivals like Alphabet or Apple to sustain multi-billion dollar bidding wars.
Read full article at whtc.com
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