Picture a Sunday afternoon during the NFL football season. Your family is spread across the living room, the game is on, and your kids are proudly wearing the jerseys of their heroes. But your team is down 26–7 in the third quarter, and hope feels thin. You think about turning it off.
But then the impossible happens.
Your team mounts a furious comeback, takes the lead 27–26 with 1:48 left, only to see the rival team march down the field for what looks like a chip-shot field goal to win. With three seconds left, the kick goes up . . . only to be blocked and returned for a touchdown as time expires. Final score: 33–26.
It sounds unbelievable, yet it happened this season in Week 3, when the Philadelphia Eagles stunned the Los Angeles Rams in one of the most thrilling finishes in recent memory.
The Sports Broadcasting ACT (SBA) makes thrilling Sundays like this possible. It limits the NFL’s antitrust exemption, providing fans across the country, from New York City to Nebraska, with an essential safeguard that ensures easy and inexpensive access to America’s favorite sport while promoting growth, innovation, and countless memories for fans and families.
However, the SBA is under attack, and we urge Congress to preserve the limited exemption to keep America’s game accessible to all.
The SBA has been in place for over 60 years and permits the league to negotiate broadcast rights for all teams, ensuring that all NFL games are televised to fans. Broadcasters can buy a single package of league-wide rights instead of haggling with 32 teams. This is why networks like CBS, NBC, FOX, and ESPN can buy whole-league broadcast packages.
In return for this limited exemption to negotiate, the NFL broadcasts much of its content for free on CBS, Fox, NBC, and ABC. The benefits to fans are numerous:
- 100% of NFL games are broadcast free over the air in the home markets of the competing teams.
- 87% of all games are available free over the air regionally or nationwide.
- Iconic plays become shared national memories – accessible to everyone, not just
- paying subscribers.
While the media world is shifting toward subscription-based streaming, we shouldn’t change a law that already guarantees broad, affordable access to NFL games. This is a proven formula – altering it now risks pushing football behind paywalls and shutting out millions of fans.
If we do, famous memories like the Immaculate Reception are at risk. NBC’s broadcast of that game reached millions and is still celebrated 50 years later. Or forget about witnessing Joe Montana’s pass to Dwight Clark (“The Catch”) in the 1982 NFL Championship game on CBS or the lateral from Frank Wycheck to Kevin Dyson in 2000 for the Music City Miracle.
These games are not just entertainment but iconic moments in American history that bind us together as a nation of shared values, excitement, and glory.
At ACLJ Action, defending the First Amendment means protecting individuals’ and organizations’ ability to broadcast their views, products, and ideas without undue government interference. The SBA reflects that same principle on a national scale.
The SBA works because it keeps professional football widely available, competitively distributed, and accessible to all Americans. Congress must take action to preserve the SBA: It’s why every child with a TV– regardless of background – can witness the next Music City Miracle.
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