Justice Department investigating NFL over games on paid platforms, sources say

The National Football League is being investigated by the federal government for practices that allegedly harm consumers for licensing games simultaneously to multiple platforms — paid streaming platforms, paid cable networks, and others, sources told CBS News.

A government official familiar with the matter said the probe is about affordability for consumers and creating an "even playing field for providers." The Wall Street Journal first reported that the DOJ opened an investigation into the NFL. 

The NFL said in a statement that its media distribution model is the "most fan and broadcaster-friendly in the entire sports and entertainment industry," and noted that 87% of its games are available on broadcast television, "including 100% of games in the markets of the competing teams." 

"The 2025 season was our most viewed since 1989 and reflects the strength of the NFL distribution model and its wide availability to all fans," the NFL said. 

NFL broadcasters, most notably Fox, have voiced concerns the NFL is spreading its games across too many streaming services and could make watching games prohibitively expensive — and confusing — for football fans. A recent editorial by The Wall Street Journal, also owned by Fox's owner Rupert Murdoch, argued the league might be violating its antitrust exemptions by spreading out its content across so many platforms. 

Republican Sen. Mike Lee, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights, said he's "glad they're tackling this." 

"In 1961, Congress enacted the Sports Broadcasting Act, granting limited antitrust immunity to allow professional football teams to collectively license the 'sponsored telecasts' of their games to national broadcast networks," Lee said. "... To the extent collectively licensed game packages are placed behind subscription paywalls, these arrangements may no longer align with the statutory concept of sponsored telecasting or the consumer-access rationale underlying the antitrust exemption."