In the past, all you needed to watch your favorite NFL team every Sunday was access to local television channels. That can still work these days, but only if you live in that team’s particular city … as long as that team isn’t playing in a prime-time, nationally-televised game … or if that team was selected to play one of the games on the various streaming services the league has worked with in recent years.
It can all get a little confusing, and expensive, for fans, which is why one U.S. Senator will introduce a bill aimed at making games more accessible and ending most sports blackouts.
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That Senator — Wisconsin Democrat Tammy Baldwin — is expected to introduce the “For the Fans” act, which will make local games easier to watch and prevent fans from having multiple subscriptions to watch their favorite teams.
The bill, if passed, would impact most major sports leagues, per The Athletic, which detailed some the changes the bill looks to make.
If enacted, the new bill would impact the NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, WNBA, MLS and NWSL, among other leagues. All nationally televised games involving pro teams from a state would be made available for free statewide, via broadcasting or streaming and on a consistent channel or service. This is similar to the NFL’s policy with TV partners that mandates free local access for fans of participating teams in nationally streamed games, like “Thursday Night Football” airing on Amazon Prime Video.
While the NFL does require “free local access” to fans during certain nationally-streamed games, that rule doesn’t apply across the entire states. In Wisconsin, for example, a Green Bay Packers game on Amazon Prime Video only needs to be shown locally in Green Bay, not anywhere else in the state. Baldwin’s bill seeks to make it so the entire state would have free access to the broadcast when the Packers — and other sports teams — play in those types of games.
Additionally, Baldwin’s bill seeks to end the practice of blackouts on league-wide services like NFL Sunday Ticket, per The Athletic.
Another function of the bill would make it so services, like NFL Sunday Ticket, NBA League Pass, MLB.TV and other platforms that offer the majority of games for out-of-market fans would no longer have national blackouts when games appear exclusively on a streaming service requiring an additional fee. For League Pass, as an example, the service, under the bill, would make it so a subscriber would not need Amazon Prime, Peacock or ESPN to watch their team’s games on those networks.
If you’re an out-of-market fan paying for “complete” coverage of your favorite NFL team through NFL Sunday Ticket, the bill wants to make sure you have access to all those games. That’s not always the case, as games can still be blacked out depending when they occur, or if they are being broadcast on a streaming service. The bill would aim to make those games accessible through services like Sunday Ticket, NFL League Pass or MLB.TV, effectively ending out-of-market blackouts for fans and ensuring fans who purchase those services wouldn’t also have to pay for the various streaming services on which games appear.
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The bill would also cover teams that are popular outside their “local” audience, per The Athletic, which noted teams like the Boston Red Sox are extremely popular across all of New England, not just in Massachusetts. The bill will take those situations into account.
The news comes a week after reports emerged suggesting the Department of Justice was investigating the NFL over antitrust protections and game accessibility.
Baldwin’s bill seems to be the next step in that process. Whether it actually comes to fruition depends on the amount of support Baldwin can get in the Senate.
Read the full article here
