Justice Division investigating NFL over video games on paid platforms, sources say

The National Football League is being investigated by the federal authorities for practices that allegedly hurt customers for licensing video games concurrently to a number of platforms — paid streaming platforms, paid cable networks, and others, sources informed CBS News.

A authorities official accustomed to the matter mentioned the probe is about affordability for customers and creating an “even playing field for providers.” The Wall Street Journal first reported that the DOJ opened an investigation into the NFL. 

The NFL mentioned in a press release that its media distribution mannequin is the “most fan and broadcaster-friendly in the entire sports and entertainment industry,” and famous that 87% of its video games can be found on broadcast tv, “including 100% of games in the markets of the competing teams.” 

“The 2025 season was our most viewed since 1989 and reflects the strength of the NFL distribution model and its wide availability to all fans,” the NFL mentioned. 

The investigation comes because the NFL has reopened negotiations with Paramount Skydance, the mother or father firm of CBS News, which owns the rights to broadcast NFL video games on Sunday afternoons throughout the season. Exercising a clause within the present TV rights contracts that enables the league to reopen a media rights deal if a companion broadcaster is bought by a brand new proprietor, CNBC reports the NFL is seeking as much as $1 billion extra per season from Paramount Skydance  so the community can proceed broadcasting video games by the 2033-34 season.

NFL broadcasters, most notably Fox, have voiced issues the NFL is spreading its video games throughout too many streaming companies and will make watching video games prohibitively costly — and complicated — for soccer followers. A current editorial by The Wall Street Journal, additionally owned by Fox’s proprietor Rupert Murdoch, argued the league may be violating its antitrust exemptions by spreading out its content material throughout so many platforms. 

Republican Sen. Mike Lee, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights, mentioned he is “glad they’re tackling this.” 

“In 1961, Congress enacted the Sports Broadcasting Act, granting limited antitrust immunity to allow professional football teams to collectively license the ‘sponsored telecasts’ of their games to national broadcast networks,” Lee mentioned. “… To the extent collectively licensed game packages are placed behind subscription paywalls, these arrangements may no longer align with the statutory concept of sponsored telecasting or the consumer-access rationale underlying the antitrust exemption.”