House Judiciary Committee disputes NFL’s declare that “87 percent” of video games are on free TV

The NFL is superb at arising with helpful statistics — after which repeatedly hammering them. As to a kind of stats, the House Judiciary Committee is hammering again.

Earlier this yr, the league started trumpeting the concept that “87 percent” of all video games can be found on free TV. The interim staff report issued by the Committee prematurely of Wednesday’s listening to on the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 disputes that quantity.

“The NFL explains that 100 percent of its ‘local market games’ (i.e., when a fan lives in the same area as the team) are available free, over-the-air on broadcast television and 87 percent of games have ‘primary distribution’ on broadcast television,” the report asserts at pages 3 and 4. “The NFL’s own analysis, however, shows that the average NFL game appears in only 39 percent of U.S. households. In addition, of the NFL’s 256 regular season games in 2016, 113 games were broadcast in less than 20 percent of U.S. households.

“The NFL’s claim that 87 percent of games have ‘primary distribution’ on broadcast television actually means that 87 percent of games are on a broadcast station somewhere in the country. In fact, significantly less than half of the games are actually available to a consumer on broadcast television, depending on the week and geographic area.”

Yes, 87 p.c of video games can be found on broadcast TV. No, followers don’t have the power to observe 87 p.c of video games on broadcast TV.

Every week, three Sunday home windows are broadcast in markets which have entry to CBS and Fox. Sunday Night Football is on NBC. Some of the Monday Night Football video games are on ABC.

Thursday night time video games are streamed by Prime Video. ESPN-only Monday night time video games require the patron to buy a package deal that features ESPN. Netflix has 5 video games this yr.

Sunday Ticket — which was once marketed as a approach for followers to observe their favourite crew when the followers don’t reside in that crew’s market (as a result of that’s why greater than 70 p.c of customers purchase it) — is intentionally overpriced to discourage followers from paying for it, to be able to encourage them to observe their in-market choices on CBS and Fox.

To see each sport performed by your favourite crew, you must both reside out there (or transfer there) or buy ESPN, Prime Video, Netflix, and Sunday Ticket. That’s the underside line. And that’s the difficulty that’s driving the present political stress in opposition to the NFL.

As the report additionally explains, the NFL obtained its broadcast antitrust exemption at a time when it was supposedly struggling to make ends meet. Now, as Eddie Murphy as soon as mentioned, “The ends are meeting like a motherf—ker.”

Given the NFL’s immense monetary success, ought to the NFL be permitted to exceed its broadcast antitrust exemption by promoting packages to cable, satellite tv for pc, or streaming? Should the whole antitrust exemption be scrapped?

Whatever the motivation for these points to land on the radar display of Congress, the Department of Justice, and/or the FCC, they’ve. Where it goes from right here stays to be seen.

Either approach, having all branches of presidency managed by the political occasion with a well-earned popularity for shielding enterprise pursuits appears to be keen to offer the NFL the enterprise. Look for extra of that to occur throughout Wednesday’s listening to.