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After the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced last week that it would seek public comment on the current shift of live sports from broadcast channels to streaming services, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee is seeking a review of the 1961 Sports Broadcasting Act.
Congress passed the law allowing leagues to pool their media rights and sell them nationally — a move that helped make NFL games a staple of free network television. Currently, these same collective rights agreements are increasingly divided for streaming platforms, sparking backlash from fans frustrated by paywalls and platform hopping.
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights, wrote a letter to Acting Assistant Attorney General Omeed A. Assefi and Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson seeking answers.
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A general view of the Seattle Seahawks defense against the New England Patriots defense during the Super Bowl LX game on February 8, 2026, at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California. (Matthew Huang/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
“I applaud the president [Donald] Trump and his administration for addressing the issue of affordability for American consumers. To watch every NFL game last season, football fans spent nearly $1,000 on cable and streaming subscriptions. In practice, this requires subscribing to multiple streaming services and maintaining high-speed Internet access in addition to a traditional cable or satellite package. The resulting fragmentation has generated consumer confusion and increased costs for viewers attempting to watch their teams…,” Lee wrote in a letter obtained Monday by PK Press Club Digital.
“The modern distribution environment differs significantly from the conditions that precipitated this exemption. Instead of a small number of free-to-air broadcast networks, the NFL now simultaneously licenses games to subscription streaming platforms, premium cable networks, and technology companies operating under different business models. To the extent that collectively licensed game packages are placed behind subscription paywalls, these agreements may no longer align with the statutory concept of sponsored telecast or access logic of consumers which underlies the antitrust exemption.
The NFL shield logo at midfield during the NFL Munich 2024 game at Allianz Arena. (Kirby Lee-Imagn Images)
“Accordingly, I am directing your antitrust enforcement agencies to review the Sports Broadcasting Act and its applicability to today’s media landscape.”
Lee ended his letter by stating that he wanted the parties to “evaluate whether the law continues to serve consumers or whether it should be revised to reflect modern market conditions.”
If one were to strictly stream all NFL games throughout the 2025 season on Sunday Ticket, Netflix, Peacock, Amazon Prime Video, ESPN Unlimited and NFL+, it would have cost them a minimum of $575, and others (former Sunday Ticket watchers) almost $800.
“From a consumer perspective, they were accustomed for a long time to you sitting down, turning on the TV and finding your favorite sports game there,” FCC Chairman Brendan Carr told PK Press Club Digital on Wednesday evening. “Either it was free or it was already part of the TV package that you had already purchased. Over the last couple of years, we’ve seen a significant number of games move behind paywalls. I think that’s been really frustrating for so many consumers.”
Sports leagues have benefited from the shift to streaming, with the NFL paying $1 billion a year to stream Thursday Night Football on Amazon, as one example. The Sports Broadcasting Act exemption passed in 1961 applies only to television.
A look at the ESPN logo. (Mike Windle/Getty Images for ESPN)
Courts have ruled in the past that this does not apply to other media, including cable, satellite and streaming. The Sports Broadcasting Act includes a rule allowing local games to be banned, which still applies to out-of-market packages sold by leagues.
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