4 days ago
House panel dives into sports broadcasting markets, 'blackout' exemptions
A group of House Republicans is seeking testimony from the heads of major sports leagues on sports broadcasting markets and "blackout" exemptions, citing concerns about antitrust violations.
In an announcement on Monday, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Subcommittee on the Administrative State, Regulatory Reform, and Antitrust Chairman Scott Fitzgerald (R-Wis.) said they had written to the commissioners of the NHL, MLB and NFL over "blacked out" games and media rights negotiations, asking for their testimony.
"The current state of the sports broadcasting market has changed considerably since the 1960s. The majority of sports viewership now occurs outside of traditional network broadcasting," the lawmakers wrote. "As a result, most of the distribution agreements that a sports league enters into are subject to antitrust challenges, while a narrow subset are not, creating legal uncertainty, distorting the market, and "effectively expanding the blind spot for potential antitrust violations."
The committee noted that Congress passed the Sports Broadcasting Act (SBA) in 1961 to allow professional sports leagues to coordinate their broadcasting decisions in an effort to help protect smaller teams and the leagues as a whole.
Sports leagues are allowed a "blackout exemption" 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," according to the current SBA.
As more broadcast networks shift resources into streaming and away from linear television, sports media rights remain the single largest driver of audience share and ad revenue for major media companies.
Many traditional broadcast outlets have meanwhile seen major streamers like Netflix, Amazon and Apple disrupt the market with multi-billion-dollar deals with pro sports leagues to broadcast games.
