NAB Telling Congress To Take Another Look At Sports Broadcasting Act
The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) is calling for Congress to reexamine the Sports Broadcasting Act to ensure that fans remain the priority in the streaming era and strongly opposes the notion that the status quo is working.
The Sports Broadcasting Act (SBA) of 1961 was designed to push broad public access to sports programming while allowing leagues to pool broadcast rights in ways that supported competitive balance and nationwide reach. As the NFL, MLB, NBA and other leagues have irked Americans by moving more games behind streaming paywalls, the NAB wants the public interest benefits that justified the act in the first place to remain for the next generation of fans.
“The Sports Broadcasting Act was enacted more than 60 years ago to help ensure Americans could access live sports on free, local television. Congress could not have imagined today’s entertainment marketplace, where fans increasingly need multiple streaming subscriptions just to follow their favorite teams,” NAB Vice President of Communications Carrie Healey told Fox News Digital.
The NAB believes free, over-the-air broadcast television remains a more consumer-friendly platform that doesn’t come with costly subscription fees. The broadcasters’ association has put a spotlight on the fact that the antitrust exemption contained in the SBA does not apply to paid streaming services.
But as the NAB pushes for a review of the act, a letter from Rep. Tony Wied, R-Wis., was circulated this week in the House urging Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, to leave the SBA untouched during the next hearing on the matter, which could come as soon as June.
The letter, which has been obtained by Fox News Digital, called for games to “continue to be accessible to fans and communities across the country,” but urges lawmakers to essentially ignore the shift of sporting events to streaming services.
The letter said the NFL has “the most consumer-friendly media distribution policy of any professional sports organization” because 87% of games remain on over-the-air television to a regional or national audience. Wied also noted that the NFL equally divides revenue from broadcasting packages among all 32 clubs, which puts teams in smaller markets on a level playing field with franchises in larger media markets.
“We urge the Judiciary Committee to preserve the SBA’s core protections while maintaining appropriate oversight to ensure that the law is applied consistent with its intent to keep America’s Game thriving,” the letter states.