NFL Faces Renewed Congressional Attack Over Media Pricing, Access

Even without NFL commissioner Roger Goodell present in Washington, D.C., for a congressional hearing Wednesday, a key U.S. House of Representatives committee is pressing forward and again attacking the league’s media policies. 

Nearly a week after Goodell declined to appear before the House Judiciary Committee, the panel solidified its plans to examine the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961—and the NFL’s compliance with it—during a Wednesday hearing. In advance of that session, the committee released a report accusing the league of abusing its antitrust exemption and artificially inflating prices for consumers.

“Today, for consumers to watch broadcast NFL games, they must navigate a complicated and expensive web of television agreements and rules,” the report reads in part. 

The committee’s report takes particular aim at the NFL Sunday Ticket out-of-market package, now streamed to consumers via YouTube since 2023 after a long run previously on DirecTV. That service, currently being sold at a promotional rate of $240 for new users and $378 for returning ones, carries fees that the panel claims are excessive.

“Sunday Ticket is largely not a product for the avid fan of NFL football in general; rather it is a product bought mostly by fans attempting to watch their favorite team who are stuck with no option,” the report reads. “The results shown … suggest that the current model of placing many NFL games behind a paywall, especially the Sunday Ticket service, is harming consumers by forcing them to pay for a large package of NFL games when they only want to see a handful of games from a single team.”

NFL Sunday Ticket was the subject of an antitrust lawsuit in which a 2024 jury verdict found the league violated federal law and awarded nearly $5 billion in damages to plaintiffs. That verdict was later overturned, and the matter is still in litigation.

League Perspective

Despite Goodell’s non-appearance, the league has been insistent throughout a rising amount of federal scrutiny that it remains committed to broadcast television. The NFL has repeatedly cited figures that it will show 87% of its games in the upcoming 2026 season primarily through broadcast television—a figure that rises to 100% in the home markets of the competing teams in each game.

That stance has remained intact despite the NFL’s rising embrace of streaming, including a newly expanded five-game rights package with Netflix this year.

“In recent years, as technologies have presented new ways to distribute video content, viewing habits have changed and we have adjusted our approach to be clear, this has not come at the expense of our dedication to broadcast television,” NFL EVP and general counsel Ted Ullyot wrote in a letter last week to Judiciary Committee chair Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio). 

Meanwhile, much of the external pressure on the NFL on this topic has come from news outlets such as Fox News, the New York Post, and The Wall Street Journal—each controlled by Rupert Murdoch. The Murdoch-led Fox Sports is approaching a rights renegotiation with the NFL, one that is set to bring higher fees and that the network is likely less equipped to absorb than other league rights holders.

Without Goodell, the committee’s three scheduled witnesses Wednesday will include OutKick Media president Clay Travis, a frequent critic of the league, along with National Association of Broadcasters president and CEO Curtis LeGeyt and Jim Hallers, founder and managing partner of Tailgators Pub & Grill in Texas.