The Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee is reaching out to Major Sports Leagues to request a briefing on Sports Broadcasting Markets and how the Digital Age has changed the need for local market “blackouts.”
Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Subcommittee on the Administrative State, Regulatory Reform, and Antitrust Chairman Scott Fitzgerald, have sent letters requesting information from the commissioners of the National Basketball Association (NBA), National Football League (NFL), National Hockey League (NHL), and Major League Baseball (MLB).
In a post on X, Jordan wonders why it’s so hard for Cleveland fans to watch the Indians play and says, “It’s time for major sports leagues to rethink local “blackout” rules in the digital age.”
A Tuesday press release from the Judiciary Committee explains that when professional sports teams first entered the television broadcasting market, teams were forced to compete for a limited number of outlets because each had to individually negotiate and sell the broadcasting rights to their home games.
Congress passed the Sports Broadcasting Act (SBA) in 1961 to allow professional sports leagues to coordinate their broadcasting decisions in order to help protect smaller teams and the leagues as a whole.
The SBA exempts “any league of clubs participating in professional football, baseball, basketball, or hockey” from antitrust liability for agreements related to the “sponsored telecasting” of their games.
The SBA includes a “blackout” exemption that allows sports leagues to prevent games from being broadcast “within the home territory of a member club of the league on a day when such club is playing a game at home.”
The letter sent by the Jordan and Fitzgerald addresses technological improvements that have taken place over the last 64 years, and states that, “Because of “rapid technological advances in the television, internet, and broadcasting industries,” delivering content to consumers is now easier and less expensive than ever before.”
In 2023, digital sports viewership surpassed traditional television viewership for the first time, and that trend is expected to continue in the future.
Despite these technological improvements, the letter states that, it is sometimes more difficult and more expensive for some fans to watch their teams during the season–often requiring fans to sign up for multiple streaming platforms and to purchase an over-the-air antenna in order to watch every game at home.
With a majority of sports viewership taking place outside of traditional media broadcasting, the letter warns that current distribution agreements are creating legal uncertainty, market distortion and may be, “effectively expanding the blind spot for potential antitrust violations.”