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PHOENIX — Federal Communications Commission chairman Brendan Carr could become an obstacle in the NFL’s pursuit of elevated rights fees, as he is now threatening the league’s antitrust exemption.
In a series of media and conference appearances in recent days, the close ally of U.S. President Donald Trump said the NFL’s increasing broadcast fragmentation is testing the commission’s patience, and that intervention could be forthcoming.
“You effectively have to have a computer science degree to decipher this,” Carr said Sunday on Fox & Friends Weekend. “We’re at a tipping point where these leagues can push it so far, putting games behind paywalls, that they undermine their ability to claim that antitrust exemption.”
That television appearance largely mirrored comments Carr made late last week.
“Does the NFL still benefit from the antitrust exemption when they’re negotiating for carriage of games not on a sponsored telecast, but on a streaming service?” Carr told Semafor. “That’s a very live, very ripe question.”
The NFL’s increasing embrace of streaming platforms such as Amazon, Netflix, and YouTube has increased the number of bidders for various pieces of league broadcasting rights, and in turn, has helped elevate the league’s rights fees. That dynamic is poised to play out again as the NFL is set to exercise opt-outs in each of its core domestic rights deals.
The NFL has a contractual opt-out with most of its rights holders after the 2029 season, but given the size and complexity of the contracts, talks are expected to begin in earnest this year. Before Super Bowl LX last month, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said the league will be looking to maximize both reach and revenue in new pacts.
“What we focus on is ‘How do we reach the broadest number of people, on every broadcast? How do we make an event out of that?’” Goodell said in his Super Bowl LX press conference last month in response to a Front Office Sports question. “We select our partners in part for that reason. Economics are obviously part of that, the value that’s created. But at the end of the day, we want partners who are going to broaden our audience.”
In the meantime, the league is also shopping rights to four games recently acquired in its complex and newly closed equity deal with ESPN parent company Disney, with streaming entities also actively involved in that bidding.
As that has happened, though, the NFL has maintained its traditional practice in which each game is still shown on over-the-air television in the home markets of the competing teams.
The NFL declined comment on Carr’s remarks.
Notably, two of the outlets that interviewed Carr extensively on this issue—the New York Post and Fox News—are controlled by the Murdoch family that also leads Fox Sports. That network is one of the incumbent NFL rights holders facing a likely spike in its costs, and Fox CEO and executive chair Lachlan Murdoch said last month that the network is prepared to “rebalance” its sports portfolio to absorb higher NFL fees.
Fragmentation has also been a defining element of the start of the 2026 MLB season.
Position of Advocacy
The NFL scrutiny marks just the latest episode of what has been a steady interest in sports broadcasting-related matters by Carr since his confirmation to the FCC post 14 months ago.
In particular, Carr has been involved in several high-profile carriage disputes between distributors and sports programmers, including the Fox-YouTube TV battle and another between the YES Network and Comcast.
