After introducing federal legislation last month to ensure fans are guaranteed a free, live option to watch broadcasts of professional sports teams within their home state, Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) is coming after the NFL for its recent scheduling practices.
On Wednesday, Sen. Baldwin issued a statement regarding the NFL’s decision to schedule her hometown Green Bay Packers for a Thanksgiving Eve game against the Los Angeles Rams exclusively on Netflix, which she claims forces “millions of Wisconsinites to pay or a subscription just to watch their home team play.”
“As the cost of just about everything continues to rise, the NFL is once again asking Wisconsinites to spend their hard-earned money on another streaming service. Enough is enough. My For the Fans Act would stop this exact scenario and prevent Wisconsin families from being forced to pay for Netflix just to watch the Packers play this Thanksgiving,” Sen. Baldwin’s statement read.
Last season, the Packers played the Chicago Bears in a playoff game on Amazon’s Prime Video. That game was made available on broadcast television to Wisconsinites residing in the Green Bay and Milwaukee areas, but not the state’s other five media markets. Sen. Baldwin’s bill ensures all fans within a given state could watch their state’s teams on free broadcast networks.
The legislation introduced by Sen. Baldwin would largely mirror how the NFL already operates regarding streaming-exclusive telecasts. Under current NFL protocols, all games that are broadcast exclusively by a streaming service or cable channel are also simulcast on a free-to-air broadcast network within the local markets of the participating teams. The For the Fans Act would apply this standard to all fans living within the state of a participating team and extend the practice to all professional sports leagues, not just the NFL. The bill would also eliminate blackouts on services like NBA League Pass and MLB.tv.
Sen. Baldwin’s statement comes during a week full of NFL scheduling news, which will culminate in the full schedule release Thursday night. Despite Netflix expanding its package to include three additional games this season, the NFL will actually have slightly more windows on over-the-air broadcast networks this season than it did last season.
Still, the NFL continues to face scrutiny from all corners of Washington, including the DOJ and FCC, over fragmenting its games across a litany of platforms. So far, it doesn’t appear as if either of those agencies’ investigations will have any teeth, but the noise around this topic is not going away anytime soon.
