House Judiciary Committee Disputes Nfl's Claim That "87 Percent" Of Games Are On Free Tv

The NFL is very good at coming up with useful statistics — and then repeatedly hammering them. As to one of those stats, the House Judiciary Committee is hammering back.

Earlier this year, the league began trumpeting the idea that "87 percent" of all games are available on free TV. The interim staff report issued by the Committee in advance of Wednesday's hearing on the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 disputes that number.

"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 percent of games are available on broadcast TV. No, fans don't have the ability to watch 87 percent of games on broadcast TV.

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

Thursday night games are streamed by Prime Video. ESPN-only Monday night games require the consumer to purchase a package that includes ESPN. Netflix has five games this year.

Sunday Ticket — which used to be marketed as a way for fans to watch their favorite team when the fans don't live in that team's market (because that's why more than 70 percent of users buy it) — is deliberately overpriced to discourage fans from paying for it, in order to encourage them to watch their in-market offerings on CBS and Fox.

To see every game played by your favorite team, you have to either live in the market (or move there) or purchase ESPN, Prime Video, Netflix, and Sunday Ticket. That's the bottom line. And that's the issue that is driving the current political pressure against the NFL.

As the report also explains, the NFL got its broadcast antitrust exemption at a time when it was supposedly struggling to make ends meet. Now, as Eddie Murphy once said, "The ends are meeting like a motherf—ker."

Given the NFL's immense financial success, should the NFL be permitted to exceed its broadcast antitrust exemption by selling packages to cable, satellite, or streaming? Should the entire antitrust exemption be scrapped?

Whatever the motivation for those issues to land on the radar screen of Congress, the Department of Justice, and/or the FCC, they have. Where it goes from here remains to be seen.

Either way, having all branches of government controlled by the political party with a well-earned reputation for protecting business interests seems to be willing to give the NFL the business. Look for more of that to happen during Wednesday's hearing.