FCC chair opposes NFL moving too many games to streamers
FCC chair opposes NFL moving too many games to streamers
Chairman Brendan Carr says he has received thousands of comments from the public regarding the NFL staying on free TV channels.
The NFL has already begun talking with broadcast partners about crafting new contracts ahead of the 2026 season. Thanks to the league’s deal to sell NFL Media to ESPN, the NFL has an inventory of international games to sell to new partners this year. But Federal Communications Commission chairman Brendan Carr is cautioning the league not to sell too many games to streaming services, or it could find itself in serious trouble.
Key Details:
- Tread carefully: FCC chair Brendan Carr has warned the NFL not to sell too many games to streaming services.
- Serious business: The league’s antitrust exemption could be threatened if it moves too many games off free TV.
- Unencessary threat?: The NFL knows full well that its gaudy annual ratings numbers rest on its offering games on free TV channels.
Carr appeared on “Fox & Friends Weekend” on Sunday to discuss his position on the NFL as it negotiates new TV deals. The chairman said that the FCC has received thousands of public comments that the NFL should remain on free, over-the-air (OTA) channels.
A well-timed Fox News poll found that 72% of sports fans think major events should stay on broadcast TV, and Carr is quite willing to wield the power of the federal government to enforce compliance. Should the NFL venture too far into awarding streaming-exclusive games, the chairman said that the FCC would look into the antitrust exemption granted to the NFL in the 1961 Sports Broadcasting Act, which allows the league to negotiate TV deals for all its teams at once as long as it preserves customer access.
Moving too many games behind the streaming paywall could indeed violate the law, and Carr joined the chorus of other lawmakers from both sides of the political aisle who have bemoaned the difficulty in finding top games in 2026.
“You effectively have to have a computer science degree to decipher this,” Carr said of the fragmented nature of sports rights.
The NFL has an inventory of international games to sell, and has been looking to streaming services as the top potential partner for that package. While that might sound ominous for sports fans, at most, this bundle will include fewer than 10 total games, but Carr’s commentary underscores how sensitive the issue of access to top sporting events has become for fans as they watch the old pay-TV ecosystem crumble before their eyes.
Live sports are essentially the last thing that gets a meaningful number of people to watch traditional TV anymore, and streaming continues to complicate that reality. On the other hand, the NFL generates eye-popping ratings from its two Sunday afternoon packages on fOTA channels (CBS and Fox), as well as the Sunday night game on NBC, and occasional “Monday Night Football” games on ABC. So, it doesn’t seem likely that the league will throw these ratings away to move an upsetting number of matchups to streamers instead. Those ratings are, after all, key leverage for the league as it seeks to increase revenue from current broadcast contracts.
Carr’s message to the NFL on keeping games available on OTA channels is quite clear, but the threat of the NFL making too many games streaming-only seems a bit overblown. Still, the league can do itself a big favor by making these international contests as easy to access as possible, and if it sells a large package of them to a free-to-use platform like YouTube, it could mitigate some concerns about forcing customers to pay more to watch games.
Streaming services have been getting access to more and more NFL games in recent years. Prime Video now owns the Thursday night package, and Netflix has become the league’s main partner for games on Christmas Day. Peacock and ESPN regularly host streaming-exclusive games as well, but the league may have to pull back on the number of matchups it sends to streamers in the future, lest the government follow through on threats to revoke its antitrust exemption.
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