Notice2026-04286
Media Bureau Seeks Comment on Sports Broadcasting Practices and Marketplace Developments
Primary source
Metadata and text below are from the Federal Register, a public-domain U.S. government work. Always verify the official published version before relying on it for any legal matter.
Published
March 4, 2026
Issuing agencies
Federal Communications Commission
Abstract
In this document, the Media Bureau of the Federal Communications Commission seeks comments to enable the Commission to evaluate the sports media marketplace and how changes in the industry have impacted broadcasters and consumers.
Full Text
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<title>Federal Register, Volume 91 Issue 42 (Wednesday, March 4, 2026)</title>
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[Federal Register Volume 91, Number 42 (Wednesday, March 4, 2026)]
[Notices]
[Pages 10605-10607]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [<a href="http://www.gpo.gov">www.gpo.gov</a>]
[FR Doc No: 2026-04286]
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FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION
[MB Docket No. 26-45; DA 26-188; FR ID 33405]
Media Bureau Seeks Comment on Sports Broadcasting Practices and
Marketplace Developments
AGENCY: Federal Communications Commission.
ACTION: Notice; request for comments.
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SUMMARY: In this document, the Media Bureau of the Federal
Communications Commission seeks comments to enable the Commission to
evaluate the sports media marketplace and how changes in the industry
have impacted broadcasters and consumers.
DATES: Comments due on or before March 27, 2026. Reply comments due on
or before April 13, 2026.
ADDRESSES: Pursuant to Sec. Sec. 1.415 and 1.419 of the Commission's
rules, 47 CFR 1.415, 1.419, interested parties may file comments and
reply comments on or before the dates indicated on the first page of
this document. Comments may be filed using the Commission's Electronic
Comment Filing System (ECFS). You may submit comments, identified by MB
Docket No. 26-42, by any of the following methods:
<bullet> Electronic Filers: Comments may be filed electronically
using the internet by accessing the ECFS: <a href="https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs">https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs</a>.
<bullet> Paper Filers: Parties who choose to file by paper must
file an original and one copy of each filing.
<bullet> Filings can be sent by hand or messenger delivery, by
commercial courier, or by the U.S. Postal Service. All filings must be
addressed to the Secretary, Federal Communications Commission.
<bullet> Hand-delivered or messenger-delivered paper filings for
the Commission's Secretary are accepted between 8:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m.
by the FCC's mailing contractor at 9050 Junction Drive, Annapolis
Junction, MD 20701. All hand deliveries must be held together with
rubber bands or fasteners. Any envelopes and boxes must be disposed of
before entering the building.
<bullet> Commercial courier deliveries (any deliveries not by the
U.S. Postal Service) must be sent to 9050 Junction Drive, Annapolis
Junction, MD 20701. Filings sent by U.S. Postal Service First-Class
Mail, Priority Mail, and Priority Mail Express must be sent to 45 L
Street NE, Washington, DC 20554.
<bullet> People with Disabilities: To request materials in
accessible formats for people with disabilities (braille, large print,
electronic files, audio format), send an email to <a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#caaca9a9fffafe8aaca9a9e4ada5bc"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="cfa9acacfafffb8fa9acace1a8a0b9">[email protected]</span></a> or
call the Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau at 202-418-0530.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Chad Guo, <a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#6c2f040d08422b19032c0a0f0f420b031a"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="a5e6cdc4c18be2d0cae5c3c6c68bc2cad3">[email protected]</span></a>, of the
Industry Analysis Division, Media Bureau, (202) 418-0652.
[[Page 10606]]
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: This is a summary of the Media Bureau's
document (Public Notice) in MB Docket No. 26-45, DA 26-188, released on
February 25, 2026. The full text of this document is available for
public inspection online at <a href="https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-26-188A1.pdf">https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-26-188A1.pdf</a> and via the search function on the Commission's Electronic
Document Management System (EDOCS) web page at <a href="https://www.fcc.gov/edocs">https://www.fcc.gov/edocs</a>. Alternative formats are available for people with disabilities
(Braille, large print, electronic files, audio format, etc.) and
reasonable accommodations (accessible format documents, sign language
interpreters, CART, etc.) may be requested by sending an email to
<a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#75131616404541351316165b121a03"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="deb8bdbdebeeea9eb8bdbdf0b9b1a8">[email protected]</span></a> or call the Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau at
202-418-0530 (voice).
Ex Parte Rules--Permit-But-Disclose. This proceeding shall be
treated as a ``permit-but-disclose'' proceeding in accordance with the
Commission's ex parte rules. Persons making ex parte presentations must
file a copy of any written presentation or a memorandum summarizing any
oral presentation within two business days after the presentation
(unless a different deadline applicable to the Sunshine period
applies). Persons making oral ex parte presentations are reminded that
memoranda summarizing the presentation must (1) list all persons
attending or otherwise participating in the meeting at which the ex
parte presentation was made, and (2) summarize all data presented and
arguments made during the presentation. If the presentation consisted
in whole or in part of the presentation of data or arguments already
reflected in the presenter's written comments, memoranda or other
filings in the proceeding, the presenter may provide citations to such
data or arguments in his or her prior comments, memoranda, or other
filings (specifying the relevant page and/or paragraph numbers where
such data or arguments can be found) in lieu of summarizing them in the
memorandum. Documents shown or given to Commission staff during ex
parte meetings are deemed to be written ex parte presentations and must
be filed consistent with rule Sec. 1.1206(b). In proceedings governed
by rule Sec. 1.49(f) or for which the Commission has made available a
method of electronic filing, written ex parte presentations and
memoranda summarizing oral ex parte presentations, and all attachments
thereto, must be filed through the electronic comment filing system
available for that proceeding, and must be filed in their native format
(e.g., .doc, .xml, .ppt, searchable .pdf). Participants in this
proceeding should familiarize themselves with the Commission's ex parte
rules.
Filing Requirements. Interested parties may file comments and reply
comments on or before the dates indicated on the first page of this
document. Comments may be filed using the
Synopsis
For decades, Americans have enjoyed turning on their television
sets and quickly finding the games they wanted to watch for free on an
over-the-air broadcast. Yet watching your favorite sports team play is
not as easy these days. Many games are still available for free over
broadcast TV, but there has been a surge in recent years of games going
behind the paywalls of various streaming services. While this can
increase the number of games and sports available to fans, many
consumers today find it more difficult to find the events they want to
watch and are now paying to sign up for one or more video distribution
platforms that consumers can find difficult to navigate.
From a historic perspective, live sports and broadcast television
have enjoyed a long and mutually beneficial relationship--one that
worked well for consumers too. Sports leagues leveraged the wide
distribution of broadcast TV to help grow their fan base and expand
their revenues. In turn, broadcast television stations used the
popularity of live sports and the advertising revenues from the
programming to support their own industry and operations, including
funding the local news and reporting that are so important to our
country.
It is against this backdrop that the Media Bureau issues this
Public Notice today. We would like for commenters to address the
current and emerging trends in the distribution of live sports
programming. How does the present marketplace benefit or harm
consumers? How does the recent trends towards fragmentation facilitate
or inhibit the ability of local broadcast television stations to meet
their public interest obligations, including their production of local
news and reporting? In what ways is the marketplace continuing to
evolve and how will future changes impact consumer access to free over-
the-air news and information, including public safety information? A
broader range of questions are specified below.
Background. Live sports on television dates back to the 1939
World's Fair, when NBC (then owned by RCA) broadcast a college baseball
game between Princeton and Columbia at Baker Field in New York. The
picture quality left a lot to be desired back then, with reports
indicating that the players looked like flies and the ball itself was
rarely visible. It was early days for broadcast television. The signal
was delivered through NBC's mobile television van and relayed to a
transmitter atop the Empire State Building before being viewed across
400 or so television sets in the New York area. Princeton won 2-1 in
ten innings.
Over the ensuing decades, a range of live sports--led by sports
like boxing, baseball, hockey, basketball, and football--helped drive
the American public's adoption of television. In turn, television led
to an increased popularity of professional and collegiate sports, and a
new source of revenue for sports leagues and teams through ``media
rights fees'' paid by networks or stations for the right to broadcast
sporting events. Since the 1960s, sports media rights fees have
exponentially increased. For example, in 1960 the American Football
League (AFL) entered into a five-year rights contract with ABC for $8.5
million and in 1961 the National Football League (NFL) entered into a
two-year rights agreement with CBS for $9.8 million. In comparison, the
most recent media rights deals entered into by the NFL amounted to more
than $10 billion per year.
In an era when broadcast TV was the only way for the American
public to watch professional sports, short of buying a ticket to attend
a game in-person, Congress passed the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961
(SBA), which provided certain antitrust relief to sports leagues to
negotiate media rights. In particular, the SBA exempts from antitrust
laws joint agreements among individual teams engaged in professional
football, baseball, basketball, or hockey. 15 U.S.C. 1291. The SBA
permits the professional sports leagues in each of those sports--the
NFL, Major League Baseball (MLB), National Basketball Association
(NBA), and National Hockey League (NHL)--to pool their individual
teams' television rights and sell those rights as a package. The
packaging of individual teams' television rights was thought to be
necessary to enhance the financial stability of the leagues by assuring
equal distribution of revenues among all teams.
The SBA also permits the NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL to ``blackout'' TV
broadcasts ``within the home territory of a member club of the league
on a day when such club is playing a game at home.'' 15 U.S.C. 1292. TV
blackouts
[[Page 10607]]
were believed by the professional sports leagues to be necessary to
protect gate receipts and encourage fans to attend games in-person. In
1975 the Commission adopted the ``sports blackout rule'' to address
concerns that cable systems could frustrate sports leagues' blackout
policies by importing the distant signal of a television station
carrying the home game of a sports team that has elected to black out
the game on a local broadcast station in its home territory due to
lacking ticket sales. The rule was later extended to open video systems
and direct broadcast satellite operators. The sports blackout rule
prohibited cable operators, satellite carriers, and open video systems
from retransmitting, within a protected local blackout zone, the signal
of a distant broadcast station carrying a sporting event if the event
is not available live on a local television broadcast station. This
rule was intended to ensure that the potential loss of gate receipts
resulting from retransmission of distant stations did not lead sports
teams to refuse to sell their broadcast rights to distant stations,
which would reduce the overall availability of sports programming on
television. Concluding that the rule was no longer necessary for
ensuring the wide availability of sports programming to television
viewers, the Commission eliminated its sports blackout rule in 2014.
Sports blackouts remain subject to private contractual arrangements
between sports teams/leagues and their video program distributors. The
SBA does not provide any antitrust exemptions to college sports.
Live sports are no longer on broadcast TV alone. Today, the NFL has
media rights agreements with Disney (ESPN/ABC), Paramount (CBS/
Paramount+), Fox Corporation (Fox/Fox One), NBCUniversal (NBC/Peacock),
NFL Network, Amazon (Amazon Prime Video), Google (YouTube), and
Netflix. Over the life of these agreements the NFL stands to bring in
over $100 billion in sports rights fees. The other major professional
sports leagues, the NHL, MLB, and NBA, have also agreed to media rights
contracts with a range of national video program distributors that
amount to billions of dollars.
Over the last two decades college athletic conferences have also
entered into multi-billion dollar media rights agreements. Both
professional sports leagues and college athletic conferences have also
launched their own networks and direct-to-consumer streaming services.
As a result, today, NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL games can be found on
broadcast, cable, and streaming services. Further, revenue derived from
sport rights fees (national and local) is now a vital revenue source in
sports, and in some cases is replacing gate receipts and other forms of
income as the largest source of revenue.
At the same time, sports remain inherently local, despite the
increasingly national nature and reach of both professional and college
sports events. Just as communities turn to their local TV broadcasters
for news, weather, and emergency information, they do the same for
coverage of their local sports teams. Many sporting events that were
previously available through free broadcast and traditional pay-TV
packages, are now only available through a myriad of stand-alone
subscription streaming services. This shift has led to notable
frustration among many consumers and sports fans. Sports fans are
increasingly left with a fragmented ecosystem that requires them to
subscribe to multiple services to watch their favorite teams.
Request for Comment. Given the nexus between sports programming and
the local media marketplace--as well as the FCC's ongoing work to
support local news and reporting--we believe it is important for us to
evaluate the sports media landscape and understand how changes have
impacted consumers and broadcasters. Accordingly, we seek comment on
the following questions.
With respect to the sports media marketplace, how have recent
developments in the marketplace affected the ability of broadcasters to
obtain media rights to sports programming? How have changes in the
marketplace affected viewers' ability to watch nationally televised
live sports, as well as their local team(s), on broadcast TV? What type
of rights (e.g. exclusive, simulcast, replay) are included in
agreements between leagues or conferences and national video
programming distributors? How prevalent are sports media rights deals
between local TV broadcasters and local sports teams and what are their
terms and conditions? How have changes in the marketplace impacted
costs to consumers?
While streamers have helped expand access to professional and
collegiate sports, they also appear to have contributed to the
fragmentation of the sports media marketplace. In 2025, NFL games aired
on 10 different services, which, according to some estimates, could
cost a consumer over $1,500 to watch all games. In addition, 20 NFL
regular season games and one playoff game were nationally distributed,
exclusively, on four different streaming services--Amazon Prime Video,
YouTube, Peacock, and Netflix. In addition to games that were
exclusively streamed, games that were televised on ABC/ESPN, CBS, Fox,
and NBC were also streamed on each networks respective streaming
platform--ESPN+, Paramount+, Fox One, and Peacock, respectively. While
the NFL requires streamers to syndicate/simulcast games over TV
broadcast stations in the local markets of the competing teams, this is
a private contractual arrangement between the NFL and its distributors.
Do any other professional or collegiate sports also have such a
requirement? Are there relevant differences between games being
distributed on linear broadcast services versus other streaming
platforms? Are there any SBA implications associated with games
distributed through non-broadcast channels? Does it matter if the
distribution platforms are subscription-based services or not?
To what extent do current sports media rights contracts conflict
with or impede TV broadcasters from meeting their public interest
obligations? How should these arrangements be considered in the context
of broadcasters' public interest obligations and the FCC's duty to
ensure licensees meet their statutory requirements? See e.g., 47 U.S.C.
307, 310(d), 309(k). Does it impact consumer access to public safety
and other emergency information? What role does the FCC have and what
steps could it take to ensure any broadcast licensee responsibilities
are fulfilled? Do local broadcast TV stations face challenges in airing
other sports programming of interest to their local communities (e.g.,
local high school sports)? With one or more significant sports rights
deals coming up for renewal, how should those negotiations factor into
the FCC's analysis?
In addition to these specific questions, we invite comment on any
other matters that parties believe would help the Commission understand
the current sports media marketplace, its legal authority, and what
actions the FCC could take to ensure continued access by viewers to
live sports through free over-the-air broadcast TV.
Federal Communications Commission.
Thomas Horan,
Chief of Staff, Media Bureau.
[FR Doc. 2026-04286 Filed 3-3-26; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6712-01-P
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