New York Congressman Calls for Investigation into Blacked-Out Sports Games
If Congressman Pat Ryan gets his way, users won’t have to worry about switching on sports games and finding them blacked out for much longer.
It’s happened to everyone. That frustrating feeling of trying to switch on a sports game featuring your favorite team, only to be met with a message that it’s not currently available in your broadcast area because of contract restrictions.
- Congressman Pat Ryan of New York’s 18th District wants an investigation into sports leagues’ practices of blacking out games.
- Ryan says it’s unfair to expect users to subscribe to myriad streaming services to watch all the sports games they want to see.
- The congressman wants the Government Accountability Office to investigate whether leagues are abusing their antitrust exemption to the harm of fans.
Is Blacking Out Sports Games Legal?
Sports leagues have been able to sell their games to multiple outlets since the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961. That law granted major leagues an exemption to antitrust laws, which allowed them to begin selling specific games off to the highest bidder. That decision has led to the current, fragmented sports landscape that users find today when they turn on their TV.
The system means that fans have to pay more to subscribe to different services like Prime Video, Apple TV+ and Peacock if they want to watch all of their favorite team’s games in a given season. Congressman Pat Ryan (D-NY) says that’s not fair, and he’s calling on top sports officials to investigate the practice.
“I’m demanding that the United States Comptroller General and Commissioners Goodell, Manfred, Bettman, and Silver immediately launch an investigation into sports blackouts to make sure New Yorkers don’t continue to get screwed,” Ryan said.
As an example, Ryan presented the case of the New York Mets and New York Yankees. Both teams saw 25 games blacked out for New York viewers because they had become streaming exclusives on Apple TV+ and other services. Ryan also takes issue with the fragmented regional sports network (RSN) system, which forces users to subscribe to a pay-TV service that carries the channels in question.
Will ESPN Help Ease Concerns with New Streaming Service?
The entire concept of out-of-market games and in-market games is at the heart of Ryan’s call for investigation. Leagues are accustomed to having one set of broadcasters for fans to watch games in their local markets only, and another set for games that will be shown on a national stage, and thus blacked out on local channels.
But the new ESPN streaming service that Disney wants to launch by 2025 could help ease those concerns. Disney wants to put as much content from as many different sports leagues as possible on the service, and has had discussions about partnering with the NFL and the NBA to place all in-market football and out-of-market basketball games on the platform.
That would certainly help alleviate the issue of fragmented sports rights, though it wouldn’t solve them. Still, ESPN is a powerful brand, and it could convince more sports leagues to offer exclusive content on its streaming platform going forward to further ease the problem of scattered sports broadcasts and streams. Whether it will be enough to satisfy Congressman Ryan is doubtful, as his call to investigate blacked-out sports games is now making its way though government circles.
Apple TV+
Apple TV+ is a subscription video streaming service for $9.99 a month that includes high-quality original shows and movies including Best Picture winner “CODA,” popular sitcom “Ted Lasso,” and dramas like “The Morning Show” and “Severance.” Apple TV+ is also home to MLB baseball games on Friday nights and MLS Season Pass.