By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON, Feb 25 (Reuters) – The Federal Communications Commission said on Wednesday it is reviewing the growing shift of live sports to pay TV and subscription services away from broadcast networks.
The FCC wants public comments on what action the agency “could take to ensure continued access by viewers to live sports through free over-the-air broadcast TV.” The FCC also is asking whether current sports media-rights contracts conflict with broadcasters meeting their public interest obligations.
The FCC noted that in 1961 the National Football League entered into a two-year rights agreement with CBS for $9.8 million and that, by comparison, recent NFL media-rights deals are worth more than $10 billion per year.
“Broadcast television stations used the popularity of live sports and the advertising revenues from the programming to support their own industry and operations, including funding the local news and reporting that are so important to our country,” the agency said.
Asked to comment on Wednesday, the NFL said more than 87% of its games are aired on free broadcast TV and that all games are aired on free broadcast television in markets of participating teams.
“The NFL has the most accessible, fan-friendly distribution model across all of sports and entertainment,” the league said in a statement.
Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League and major broadcast networks did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
A 1961 law exempts major sports leagues from antitrust laws and allows them to pool their individual teams’ television rights and sell those rights as a package.
The FCC noted that the NFL has media-rights agreements with ABC parent Walt Disney, CBS parent Paramount, Fox Corporation, NBCUniversal, NFL Network, Amazon and Google, and that the league stands to bring in over $100 billion in sports rights fees over the life of the deals.
The FCC said many sporting events previously available through free broadcast or traditional cable TV packages are now available only through standalone subscription streaming, which has frustrated many sports fans.
The FCC said that last year, NFL games aired on 10 different services and cited estimates that it could cost a consumer more than $1,500 to watch all games.
(Reporting by David Shepardson in Washington, Editing by Franklin Paul and Matthew Lewis)
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