Fox, Sinclair submit comment to FCC advocating protections for sports on broadcast TV

A couple of major broadcast station owners have submitted formal comment urging the FCC to protect live sports on over-the-air TV.

Fox and Sinclair, both of which own a significant number of major broadcast stations across the country, have responded to the FCC’s inquiry for public comment regarding the future of live sports on free, over-the-air broadcast television as games increasingly move to paid streaming services.

“Making paywalled streaming the default viewing option for live sports could have devastating consequences for consumers and broadcast stations alike,” Fox wrote to the FCC, per Bloomberg. “Moving more sports behind paywalls would increase consumer costs, price some consumers out of watching, and keep others in the dark in areas where games featuring favorite teams would no longer be available.”

At issue is the antitrust exemption granted to the four major North American professional sports leagues via the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961. The exemption allows leagues to package the broadcast rights of individual teams together, then sell them to broadcasters. Fox and Sinclair argue that this exemption should not apply when leagues choose to sell games to streamers because the idea of a “sponsored telecast,” a telecast consumers can access for free because broadcasters sell sponsorships against it, does not apply to paid streaming services.

Sinclair also appealed to an argument being made by FCC chair Brendan Carr in recent weeks, suggesting that live sports fleeing broadcast television would hurt local news.

“Without high-value live sports on broadcast television, local broadcast journalism will suffer,” Sinclair wrote, per Reuters.

Another theme brought up by the broadcasters is that live sports can serve as a “loss leader” for the big tech companies that own streamers, forcing sports fans into “vertically integrated businesses that primarily profit off of the personal consumption data of its customers.” Contrarily, broadcast networks are freely accessible to anyone without the need to divulge personal information.

Of course, this is all happening at the same time the NFL is entering into new broadcast negotiations with its rightsholders. The timing of this federal pressure could be, at least in part, designed to provide leverage for broadcast networks during these negotiations.

It is worth noting, out of all four major professional North American sports leagues, the NFL is by far the most accessible on broadcast television. Last season, over 87% of the league’s games aired on free broadcast networks, and even games that are exclusive to a streaming service air on free broadcast networks in the local markets of participating teams.

That hasn’t done much to slow the narrative that sports, including the NFL, have become ever more fragmented in recent years. And the NFL hasn’t done much to stop that narrative either. Just this week, new reports surfaced that Netflix is looking to expand its package next season to four games, up from just two on Christmas Day in prior seasons.

But where it once appeared that broadcasters didn’t have much recourse against a behemoth like the NFL, the federal government’s newfound interest in keeping sports accessible might provide a bit of a life raft.