The NFL recently met with FCC officials on the league's media-rights strategy as regulators scrutinized the migration of sports to streaming.
As federal regulators scrutinize the migration of sports to streaming, the NFL is going on the offensive, meeting last week with senior Federal Communications Commission officials to justify the league's media-rights strategy.
The meeting Friday in Washington, which the NFL requested, came after the FCC started its probe into the changing sports-media business and whether the evolution is harming consumers and the broadcast-television industry. The meeting was described in an FCC filing Tuesday by the NFL.
Separately, the Justice Department is investigating sports leagues' pivot to streaming and its impact on the marketplace.
The FCC gathering included the league's top media executive, Hans Schroeder, who oversees how the NFL licenses games to its media partners. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, who has made sports leagues a target in public comments, greeted the league officials before turning the meeting over to his top advisers.
Schroeder's presentation to the FCC defended its 65-year-old antitrust exemption that allows it to negotiate media rights for all NFL teams. In one slide, the league argued that having 32 teams negotiate their own rights deals individually would result in further viewer confusion and higher costs.
Sports leagues are selling more games to streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon.com's Prime Video, which are willing to pay a premium for the popular content. Viewers often express frustration at the challenges of keeping up with who is carrying what games and the added costs to watch them.
The league has created streamed games including Amazon's Thursday Night Football and Netflix's Christmas Day matches and has moved some postseason playoff games to streaming. The NFL is currently shopping a package of five games that is expected to end up on streaming services, The Wall Street Journal has reported. Netflix is among the interested bidders.
"Many consumers today find it more difficult to find the events they want to watch and are now paying to sign up for one or more video distribution platforms that consumers can find difficult to navigate," the FCC said in a February notice seeking comments from the industry and interested parties including consumers.
The agency said it is concerned that the move of more sports and ad dollars to streaming could "inhibit the ability of local broadcast television stations to meet their public interest obligations, including their production of local news and reporting."
In recent comments to the FCC, Fox Corp. said "making paywalled streaming the default viewing option for live sports could have devastating consequences for consumers and broadcast stations alike." (Fox and Journal parent News Corp share common ownership.)
While the NFL is selling more games to streaming services, Schroeder said pro football remains the most fan-friendly sport in part because most of its matchups are available through free, over-the-air television.
In its presentation, the league said 87% of its games are primarily distributed on broadcast TV through CBS, NBC, Fox and ABC, as has long been case.
"Facts are stubborn things," Schroeder said in an interview.
Per NFL policy, when games are shown on streaming services or cable channels, they are also available in the local TV markets of the teams playing.
"Even as we've gone on to new platforms like Netflix or Amazon...we are doing so in a very selective and appropriate way," Schroeder said.
The Justice Department's separate probe is particularly focused on whether sports leagues are engaging in anticompetitive practices when selling rights, the Journal has reported.
Charlie Beller, acting deputy assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's antitrust division, addressed the topic of antitrust enforcement in a shifting media landscape at an industry conference Monday.
"The key antitrust question is whether the process by which those prices are set remains competitive," he said.