The U.S. Department of Justice has launched an investigation into whether the NFL has engaged in anticompetitive practices, including with respect to broadcasting arrangements, puts a new spotlight on a familiar target for the league.
The investigation, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, elevates concerns expressed by critics of the NFL that teams pooling their out-of-town broadcasts through the Sunday Ticket makes watching games too expensive, but the investigation could run into a series of obstacles that lead to it being dropped.
The DOJ’s probe comes a month after a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit expressed reservations about the league’s legal position in the Sunday Ticket antitrust litigation. The panel has not yet issued a ruling but one is expected in the weeks ahead.
The NFL is armed with a number of legal defenses in trying to rebut allegations its media rights arrangements violate the law. One central defense is that the NFL won a trial in 2024 over this topic. Another is the U.S. Supreme Court may regard pro sports leagues as unique joint ventures where individual teams should receive deference in how they collaborate.
To those points, in 2024, U.S. District Court Judge Philip S. Gutierrez tossed aside a Los Angeles jury’s awarding of $4.6 billion and $97 million to the residential subscribers and commercial establishments, respectively, with damages potentially climbing to $14.1 billion due to antitrust law’s trebling feature (i.e., automatically multiplying damages by three). Jurors reasoned that NFL teams don’t have to pool their games and could instead compete with each other, such as the Dallas Cowboys negotiating with cable stations to carry games in other markets, like Chicago and New York, where many Cowboys fans reside; currently teams agree to not compete with each other in their home territories.
While the jury determined the NFL violated antitrust law through its 32 teams pooling broadcasting rights for out-of-town fans and allegedly using that approach to charge higher prices, Gutierrez concluded that jurors were confused by expert testimony and hypotheticals regarding overcharges and discounts and misunderstood how to apply antitrust law.
Ninth Circuit judges Holly Thomas, Anthony Johnstone and Joan Lefkow seemed skeptical of Gutierrez’s reasoning and restated some of the plaintiffs’ arguments centering around how numerous college football broadcasts are distributed on free over-the-air channels and basic sports cable channels and how the NFL could adopt a similar framework.
One key difference between NFL game broadcasts and college football game broadcasts is the former are protected by the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 (SBA). The SBA provides a limited antitrust exemption to professional football, basketball, baseball and hockey leagues when they and their teams negotiate TV contracts that provide sponsored (meaning over the air, free to watch and picked up by antennas) telecasting of games. The SBA doesn’t insulate the NFL from antitrust scrutiny of the NFL Sunday Ticket but does provide protection of its broadcasts freely distributed to local fans.
The investigation also arrives after the Federal Communications Commission’s Media Bureau recently issued a public notice soliciting comments on the distribution of live sports programming, the current state of media contracts, and whether key industry players are meeting legal and public-interest obligations overseen by the agency.
Key to the FCC’s inquiry is the fragmentation of live sports telecasts, with games appearing on various networks, cable channels, streaming services, league-owned channels and direct-to-consumer streaming apps, with the apparent chaos of game distribution reflecting numerous and complicated media rights agreements. The FCC noted that the NFL aired games on 10 different services in 2025 and, according to the FCC’s math, could have cost a consumer over $1,500 to watch all NFL games last year.
Attorney Alan Milstein, who led the antitrust litigation of former Ohio State running back Maurice Clarett against the NFL’s eligibility rule, applauded the investigation.
“From someone who has previously accused the NFL of anti-competitive behavior, and as an avid consumer, I could not agree more with the investigation into the NFL,” Milstein said.
“The theory of the 1961 Sports Broadcasting Act was that we fans have some ownership interest in our town’s teams and whatever our financial status have the right to watch them win or lose on the public airwaves, profits be damned.”
It should be stressed the opening of a DOJ investigation does not mean the investigation will lead to legal action. An investigation by the feds means NFL and team officials might need to turn over various materials and answer questions, including in live interviews, but the investigation might find the NFL is complying with the law.
The DOJ leaking the investigation to a major media outlet is also significant. It could be seen as federal regulators sending a message to the NFL that it should explore ways to reduce the costs of watching games on TV. One longstanding suggestion is that the NFL consider smaller and less expensive pooling arrangements for out-of-town broadcasts. For example, an AFC East package for out-of-town fans of the New England Patriots, Buffalo Bills, the Miami Dolphins and New York Jets would presumably cost less than the Sunday Ticket, which carries all games and costs $240 a year, though it can be cheaper with various discounts and more expensive for businesses.
The NFL is armed with business and legal defenses.
As a starting point, a league spokesman said the NFL’s media distribution model “is the most fan and broadcaster-friendly in the entire sports and entertainment industry.” The spokesperson added, “With over 87% of our games on free, broadcast television, including 100% of games in the markets of the competing teams, the NFL has for decades put our fans front and center in how we distribute our content. The 2025 season was our most viewed since 1989 and reflects the strength of the NFL distribution model and its wide availability to all fans.”
These points reflect how, unlike other major pro leagues—whose teams generally rely on regional sports networks that cost fans money to subscribe—the NFL makes its games free and over the air for local fans of NFL teams. As the league has intimated during the NFL Sunday Ticket antitrust litigation, if the league could not offer the Sunday Ticket or otherwise pool their out-of-town broadcasts, the economics for NFL media rights would change. It’s possible the league and its teams would reconsider their policy of games being made free to local fans and explore the approach used by other leagues to distribute games to RSNs and other paid services.
The NFL has also insisted Sunday Ticket is appealing because it is a guarantee that games can be watched whether fans reside in a major market or a rural area. A New England Patriots fan living in Mississippi can be sure they can watch their team through the Sunday Ticket. Without the Sunday Ticket, that fan’s ability to watch Patriots games could become uncertain. The hypothetical of Jerry Jones striking deals in New York, Chicago and other major cities might prove true, but whether that covers all markets and whether other owners would do the same are all question marks.
Lastly, while the U.S. Supreme Court—which has the final voice on legal questions—hasn’t taken a position on the Sunday Ticket, one justice has suggested it is lawful. In 2020, Justice Brett Kavanaugh commented on the Sunday Ticket in an earlier iteration of the litigation and wrote that pro leagues should enjoy some degree of deference in how they distribute telecast rights. Kavanaugh stressed that pro leagues are joint ventures and thus teams must cooperate in certain ways.
“Antitrust law,” Kavanaugh wrote at the time, “likely does not require that the NFL and its member teams compete against each other with respect to television rights.”
That kind of thinking is one that should give the NFL confidence it will ultimately prevail in legal fights over media rights distribution.
Jacob Feldman contributed to this story.
