The on-again, off-again tension between the National Football League and the nation’s leader has landed on pro football’s pivot to streaming.
In an interview with Full Measure, President Donald Trump was asked if he thinks the NFL is engaged in “price gouging” by putting games on paid platforms, and whether the federal government should do something about it.
“It’s tough,” Trump said. “You’ve got people that love football. They’re great people. They don’t make enough money to go and pay this. It’s tough. And they could be killing the golden goose. I mean, they have that stupid kickoff thing that you can’t watch. It’s unwatchable. I hate the games where they, you know, they have the new phony kickoff. I don’t think it’s any safer. I hope college football doesn’t do that.”
It’s no surprise that Trump found a way to bring up the NFL’s two-year-old alternative to the traditional kickoff formation. He often does, even if he doesn’t seem to realize that the new formation leads to far more returns than the prior formation did.
The next question brought the topic back to the migration of games to paid platforms.
“They have to be careful because, you know, others have tried this, and all of a sudden you don’t have a sport anymore. Probably will. . . . There’s something very sad when they take football away from many, many people. Very sad. I don’t like it.”
So does he think the government will intervene?
“I don’t know,” Trump said. “But I don’t like it. I don’t like it. They’re making a lot of money. They could make a little bit less. They could let the people see. You have people that live for Sunday. They live — they can’t think about anything else, and then all of a sudden, they’re gonna have to pay $1,000 a game. It’s crazy. So, I’m not happy about it.”
Obviously, no one is paying $1,000 per game. He likely meant to say that it costs nearly $1,000 per season to watch all games.
Either way, the issue is on the President’s radar screen. It comes at a time when the NFL has been attempting to get the free, over-the-air networks to pay more for broadcast contracts that run through 2029. And when the networks, with Fox owner Rupert Murdoch at the helm, are pushing back by pulling any and all available levers within the political system.
