The Justice Department is investigating the NFL for possible anticompetitive practices, a government official said.
The official, who was not authorized to speak by name about an ongoing investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press that the investigation focuses on “affordability for consumers and creating a level playing field for providers.”
The Wall Street Journal first reported on the investigation.
The NFL has not received notification that the league is being investigated, according to two other people with knowledge of the situation. Those people spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment on potential legal matters.
The investigation comes amid growing federal scrutiny over the amount of money fans are paying to watch sports on television. The Federal Communications Commission is seeking public comment on the ongoing shift of live sports from free-to-air channels to streaming services.
The NFL said in a statement Thursday that more than 87% of its games are available on broadcast television, including all those played in a team’s home market.
“The NFL’s media distribution is the most favorable model for fans and broadcast networks across the sports and entertainment industry. The 2025 season was the most watched since 1989 and reflects the strength of the NFL’s distribution model and its broad availability to all fans,” the league said in its statement.
Utah Sen. Mike Lee, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights, wrote a letter to the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission on March 3 urging them to review whether the NFL’s distribution methods comply with the Sports Broadcasting Act, which provides limited antitrust immunity to allow teams to collectively license game broadcasts to national networks.
“The modern distribution environment differs substantially from the conditions that precipitated this exemption. Instead of a small number of free broadcast networks, the NFL now licenses games simultaneously to subscription streaming platforms, premium cable networks and technology companies operating under different business models,” the Republican senator wrote. “To the extent that collectively licensed match packages are placed behind subscription paywalls, these agreements may no longer conform to the legal concept of sponsored streaming or the consumer access logic underlying the antitrust exemption.”
Lee claimed in his letter that American football fans spent nearly $1,000 on cable and streaming subscriptions. Forbes estimated the cost of streaming every NFL game last season at $765.
The NFL broadcast games last season on CBS, NBC, ABC/ESPN/ESPN+/ESPN+, Fox, NFL Network, Amazon Prime Video, Netflix and YouTube TV.
The league averages nearly $11 billion per season in revenue from its media deals. That could increase as Paramount’s sale to Skydance Media allows the league to renegotiate its deal with CBS.
Rights deals extend through 2033 with most platforms and through 2034 with ESPN. The league has an opt-out clause after the 2029 season, which it will likely exercise, since 83 of the 100 most-watched broadcasts last year were NFL games, according to Nielsen.
The exemption from the Sports Broadcasting Law, passed in 1961, applies only to broadcast television. In the past, courts have ruled that it does not apply to other media, including cable, satellite and streaming.
The Sports Broadcasting Law includes a rule allowing blackouts for local games, which still applies to out-of-market packages sold by the league. The NFL ended local television blackouts — which applied to games within a 75-mile radius of a team’s market if they were not sold out 72 hours before kickoff — after the 2014 season.
Last year, the House Judiciary Committee requested briefings from the NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB on whether they should still be granted antitrust exemptions to coordinate their broadcast rights on broadcast television.
The four major professional sports leagues in North America have agreements with streaming platforms.
In 2024, a jury in federal district court in Los Angeles ruled that the NFL violated antitrust laws by distributing out-of-market Sunday afternoon games on a premium subscription service and awarded $4.7 billion in damages.
A federal judge overturned the verdict in the class action because testimony from two subscribers’ witnesses had flawed methodologies and should have been excluded.
The lawsuit covered 2.4 million residential subscribers and 48,000 businesses in the United States who paid for the “Sunday Ticket” package on DirecTV of out-of-market games from the 2011 to 2022 seasons.
Since damages can be tripled under federal antitrust laws, the NFL could have been liable for $14,121,779,833.92.
