Packers chime in on broadcast antitrust exemption

Article text

As the NFL faces an unprecedented political attack on its 65-year-old broadcast antitrust exemption, the league and its teams are for the most part saying nothing — especially not publicly. Beyond the "87 percent" talking point (which is technically true when looking at the entire nation but inaccurate as to any given market), no one connected to the NFL is saying much. That made Tuesday's lead item in a Packers.com mailbag column even more significant. Under the subtitle " SBA gives small fish a fair shake ," this is the first question for the day: "[D]o you think there is anything to the FCC and DOJ reevaluating the NFL's special treatment under antitrust laws? The NFL has benefitted greatly from special exemptions that not many get under the understanding that the NFL would maintain reasonable customer access to their broadcasts. Is requiring five different streaming services reasonable access in your opinion?" That's a fairly pointed question, one that easily could have been ignored. Instead, it was embraced. Here's the full, one-long-paragraph response from Wes Hodkiewicz of the Packers' official in-house website: "The Sports Broadcasting Act is a complicated subject but also a critical one to address because of the possible implications for a small-market franchise like the Packers. In many ways, the SBA has been the cage protecting the Packers from perilous waters. We've seen in other leagues how difficult it can be for small-market teams to survive when there is no salary cap and clubs must negotiate their own media contracts. When that happens, it's the viewers who ultimately lose. My 95-year-old grandmother from Pulaski can flip on the Packers game every Sunday without fail. However, she was thrown into a tizzy this offseason because the Brewers games were no longer readily available due to MLB broadcasting deals. I commend the Brewers for the job they've done swimming against the current, but there's a final boss in the Los Angeles Dodgers — with nearly four times the payroll — awaiting them in the postseason thanks to the Dodgers' TV deal. The NFL has a tremendous product, and it's led to unprecedented growth over the past 30 years. A big part of that formula for success, however, is the parity created through revenue-sharing and a structured salary cap. The SBA gives small fish such as Green Bay, Kansas City, and Cincinnati a fair shake in this vast NFL ocean. I understand the plight of fans to watch their favorite teams in today's media landscape. We've spoken about it often over the past year. But it's also important to acknowledge the valves and levers that allow the Packers to operate. The SBA plays into that. While it's popular for politicians on both sides of the aisle to say, 'Make all the games free for everyone,' it feels more like a kid wistfully desiring every toy under the Christmas tree without knowledge of what it took to get them there. The reality is we live in a society where more and more households are cutting cords and switching their media consumption to streaming. Netflix now has more than 80 million domestic subscribers to cable's 55 million. The NFL, like every media entity, is doing what it must to meet tomorrow's consumers where they are today. No different than the challenge the Packers face with private equity money flowing into the league, they must keep finding ways to keep pace with these NFL titans. Losing the SBA, without any proper plan, would jeopardize that. That's why this is such an im…