NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell’s offseason schedule may have just gotten a bit busier.
On Monday, Representative Jim Jordan (R, OH), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, dispatched a letter to Goodell requesting him to testify about the NFL’s media practices at his committee’s hearings on June 10, ESPN reports.
The committee has convened hearings against the backdrop of increasing scrutiny of how all professional sports leagues – not just the NFL – have driven up consumer costs by moving more of their live events to streaming services.
At the heart of the issue, and what will no doubt consume much of the testimony, is the Sports Broadcasting Act (SBA) of 1961.
Under the SBA, sports leagues receive a limited antitrust exemption that permits them to bundle and sell the rights to broadcast their games, rather than individual teams selling the rights to their games. The crux of the issue will be whether the SBA, written decades before the advent of cable and streaming services, still serves as adequate governing legislation when leagues face a myriad of platform options that range far beyond traditional television.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) has already acted, ordering investigations into the NFL and how the fragmentation of its media rights sales has impacted consumers who grew up watching football for free and are now being asked to purchase 12-month streaming service subscriptions to watch their favorite teams.
A flurry of bills from concerned lawmakers has already been proposed to relieve the cost-to-watch burden hitting fans in their states.
Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), for example, has introduced legislation that would make it free for fans to watch teams based in their home state.
Under current NFL broadcast rules, fans residing in the television markets of the state where their team plays can watch the games for free. However, that viewership is strictly limited to the areas near the cities where the team is based.
As it stands, the NFL airs 87% of its games for free on traditional broadcast television.
This is not the first time Goodell has been asked to travel to Capitol Hill to address the growing fragmentation issue. Last year, the Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing on fragmentation in which the commissioners of all four major American sports leagues were invited to attend.
Roger Goodell was the only one who did not attend the hearing.