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Television Government The Almighty Buck United States

Senators Threaten To Rescind NFL Antitrust Exemption 242

Posted by samzenpus from the new-rules dept.
An anonymous reader writes In response to the FCC's discontinuation of rules that support the NFL's blackout policies, the NFL issued a statement indicating that it would nevertheless continue to enforce its blackout policies through its private contract negotiations with local networks. On Wednesday, however, Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) announced a bill that would rescind the antitrust exemption that enables the NFL to demand blackouts in the first place and formally warned the NFL to abandon blackouts altogether. The antitrust exemption gives sports leagues "legal permission to conduct television-broadcast negotiations in a way that otherwise would have been price collusion" and further allowed the formation of the NFL from two separate leagues. Meanwhile, the NFL enjoys a specialized tax status and direct monetary support from taxpayers to build arenas and stadiums.
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Senators Threaten To Rescind NFL Antitrust Exemption More

Senators Threaten To Rescind NFL Antitrust Exemption

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  • Live by the sword, die by the sword (Score:5, Insightful)

    by JoeyRox ( 2711699 ) on Thursday October 02, 2014 @06:37PM (#48052113)
    The NFL obviously paid off some group of politicians to achieve their non-profit status. Now a new set of politicians have their hand out for another sweaty envelope filled with cash.

    • Re: Live by the sword, die by the sword (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Or they already got paid off by the cable companies. Blackouts hurt football fans, true: but they also hurt cable companies.

      What, you didn't think the FCC changed the rules to benefit lowly citizens, did you?!

    • Re:Live by the sword, die by the sword (Score:5, Funny)

      by DoofusOfDeath ( 636671 ) on Thursday October 02, 2014 @07:00PM (#48052269)

      The League of Extraordinary Lobbyists?

    • Why would the envelope be sweaty?

    • Re:Live by the sword, die by the sword (Score:5, Informative)

      by mythosaz ( 572040 ) on Thursday October 02, 2014 @07:15PM (#48052375)

      Only the league office is nonprofit. The teams are not. It's not particularly nefarious.

    • Re:Live by the sword, die by the sword (Score:5, Insightful)

      by amiga3D ( 567632 ) on Thursday October 02, 2014 @07:34PM (#48052509)

      When you piss off Congress to the point that they ignore their usual Leftie vs RIghtie tift and decide to work together.....you're fucked.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by mysidia ( 191772 )

        Something tells me this Sports Blackout rule change thing is rather sudden and a distraction related to an upcoming election day.....

        Yes, I agree blackouts suck, but at the end of the day NFL/etc have the right to control distribution of their content.

        There are REAL issues our legislators need to address, such as getting rid of software patents, lowering taxes, and cutting spending, that would make me happy.

        • Re:Live by the sword, die by the sword (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Stan92057 ( 737634 ) on Thursday October 02, 2014 @11:11PM (#48053493)
          Yes, I agree blackouts suck, but at the end of the day NFL/etc have the right to control distribution of their content.

          That would be true if they didn't except taxpayer money/tax exemptions/tax breaks but they do and that money comes conditions. I say F the NFL,MBL,NHL owners save up your own dam money and build your own dam stadiums without having to cut school budgets and many other social needs.

        • Re:Live by the sword, die by the sword (Score:5, Funny)

          by discovercomics ( 246851 ) on Friday October 03, 2014 @03:19AM (#48054143) Homepage
          Actually Blackouts are great. When the Jaguars are blacked out I get to see some real football.
        • They do have a right to negotiate how their content is distributed but they are a monopoly and that gives them an unfair advantage to negotiate those terms. Removing the antitrust exemption will allow the government to go after the NFL for these practices, as well as many other practices, rookie pay scale, salary caps, merchandizing, franchising, stadium deals... The NFL is allowed to get away with a lot of things because of this protection. It's all just election cycle dick waving but the NFL should be wa

        • Re:Live by the sword, die by the sword (Score:4, Interesting)

          by oh_my_080980980 ( 773867 ) on Friday October 03, 2014 @08:25AM (#48055081)
          Hello ass hat who doesn't understand that football games are subsidized by tax payer money. The argument is that airing a game that does not sell out ticket sales cuts into their profits. The irony is the NFL makes most of it's money through TV contracts making that argument bogus - which is what the FCC found.
          • If NFL wishes to be able to enforce blackouts, then they need to provide seating for all of the millions of people in that area that would have wanted to watch the game. If the game has sold out, they have not provided adequate seating and they do not get to have a blackout.
            Also, the seating must accommodate all income levels, up to and including having free seats for people who can't afford to go to games and would have watched it for free on their TV.
            I realize this sounds preposterous, but it is meant
    • People love it. I know people that it's the only thing they care about. They didn't _have_ to bribe politicians. People cheerfully vote in favor of their stadiums just so they could have a team.
  • The NFL also gets nonprofit status [wikipedia.org] on top of this. Could we do more to support them?

    • The League Office is nonprofit, not the teams.

    • Re:Could they get any more special treatment? (Score:5, Funny)

      by DoofusOfDeath ( 636671 ) on Thursday October 02, 2014 @06:59PM (#48052261)

      The NFL also gets nonprofit status [wikipedia.org] on top of this. Could we do more to support them?

      I dunno. Let's rename them to the Israeli Football League and see what happens.

    • Re:Could they get any more special treatment? (Score:5, Informative)

      by snsh ( 968808 ) on Thursday October 02, 2014 @07:14PM (#48052367)

      Don't confuse "nonprofit" with "charity". While virtually all charities are nonprofits, not all nonprofits are charities.

      The NFL being nonprofit is simply a reflection of how the league is organized and equity and earnings are allocated. In this case, most of the equity in the NFL is held by individual teams and the teams' billionaire owners, and all the earnings are targeted to those same teams. The league acts as just a vehicle for the teams to coordinate functions like marketing, scheduling, and league matters. So when the league gets $10 billion in TV contracts, all the profit is distributed to the teams, which then pay taxes on it. Being structured as a nonprofit, the NFL league has trustees and beneficiaries. It could reincorporate as a for-profit, in which case it would have owners and shareholders. In that case, each team owner could be granted one share. If that were to happen, Paul Allen instead of receiving one tax bill for $100 million for the Seahawks, would get two tax bills for $70 million (for the Seahawks) and $30 million (for the NFL share). From the taxman's point of view, it's pretty much the same.

      There's nothing sneaky about the NFL being a nonprofit. It's just reflects how the league was originally set up.

    • The NFL also gets nonprofit status [wikipedia.org] on top of this. Could we do more to support them?

      Well, we could build massive new stadiums for all of their teams using public funds. Oh, wait...

  • I wish McCain would retire (Score:5, Interesting)

    by the_skywise ( 189793 ) on Thursday October 02, 2014 @06:41PM (#48052147)

    This is obviously a payback to Comcast...

    The point of having the blackouts to begin with is AGREED upon by the very cities that McCain is claiming to "protect". It brings foot traffic into the cities and increases sales to nearby restaurants and bars and let's not even go into ensuring that the stadium (which shares profits with the towns) is as near capacity as possible.

    Now, if we want to completely privatize the stadiums I'm all for letting the free market do its thang. But, as McCain oddly points out, these are NOT private entities but basically defacto public partnerships.

    • Re:I wish McCain would retire (Score:5, Insightful)

      by AuMatar ( 183847 ) on Thursday October 02, 2014 @06:59PM (#48052263)

      The point of the blackouts is to extort money from the fans for an overpriced live experience. If they really wanted to sell out every game, they should study basic economics and drop prices. They'll still make ridiculous amounts of money.

      • Re:I wish McCain would retire (Score:5, Interesting)

        by rahvin112 ( 446269 ) on Thursday October 02, 2014 @09:14PM (#48053033)

        Stadium revenue isn't even 5% of the teams earnings anymore. It's so ridiculously small in fact that it's the entire reason cited by the FCC for abolishing the blackout restriction. They could literally give the tickets away and it wouldn't impact earnings in any significant manner.

        The reason they don't cheapen the tickets is that by keeping prices high the owners can use the tickets like money. Court-side tickets are so expensive when they hand the mayor a season's worth of tickets he's bound to whatever the owner wants because they've given him the equivalent of $100K. But because they set the pricing on the seats they can declare the tickets worth less than $5. Those high priced tickets are essentially their own untraceable money that they can print at will.

        • Stadium revenue isn't even 5% of the teams earnings anymore.

          I just learned today that the distribution of the TV money to teams is almost exactly equal to their salary cap. That means, the stadium earning is the profit, along with merchandising deals.

          That means the stadium revenue is actually a very big part of their profit margin.

          Where did you get the 5% figure, by the way?

      • if the stadium stays the same price, and they drop prices, they can't sell any more tickets. They will lose money.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • Fuck you asshole. Let the free market carry the fucking NFL. The NFL does not need any protection. They make over $12 Billion annually and blackmail local communities into coughing up tax payer money to build new stadiums.

          You are a fucking idiot. Participation is not optional. You subscribe to any TV service provider you get ESPN. You can't drop it. Period. ESPN charges a premium for carrying its channel even though more people watch QVC than ESPN. ESPN coughed up $15 Billion dollars to carry Mon

    • Yeah, and maybe if it didn't cost $100 for a couple to buy tickets plus $8 beers and really bad $6 hotdogs your argument might make sense.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by C0R1D4N ( 970153 )
        $100 for two tickets? You must live in Oakland. Bit more expensive in NJ.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by Jaime2 ( 824950 )
          I went to a Monday night Buffalo Bills game with the company's tickets a few years ago. They were decent seats on the goal line, with a bar that was private to the two thousand fans in the section. The tickets cost $275 each..... for a Bills game.

    • Comcast will need to due a lot of work if they want NFL Sunday ticket. There system right now does not have the room for it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Ogive17 ( 691899 )
      The NFL has reached a stage that the blackout rule will have almost no impact on sales.
      • Last year, two teams, the San Diego Chargers and Buffalo Bills, blacked out local television coverage of a game due to not being sold out 72 hours before kickoff.

        Last blackout for notable teams:

        NY Giants: 1975

        SF 49ers 1981

        Dallas Cowboys 1990

        Chicago Bears 1984

        NE Patriots 1993

        Washington Redskins 1965

    • That view is fine... as long as blackouts only extend to a minor geographical distance, such as 30 miles.

      These days, you can be 300 miles away from the event, and be subject to blackout restrictions. That's asinine and overreaches.
  • 1 - Startup
    2 - Cash in
    3 - Sell out
    4 - Bro down

  • Welcome to the free market (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Snotnose ( 212196 ) on Thursday October 02, 2014 @07:11PM (#48052351)
    You charge too much for tickets/parking/hot dogs/beer, people don't go see your games. Threatening to not allow fans who won't bend over and lube up see the game is IMHO seriously bad business practice. Want to entice fans to games? Don't charge $500 per game for a family to go.

    / haven't been to a game in 15 years
    // prefer watching it on TV
    /// except for the damned commercials
    //// then again, when I went to the game they had "commercial timeouts".

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by alen ( 225700 )

      please
      the fans cream themselves when the teams sign up players for tens of millions of $$$ and if the team isn't winning they rage that teams need to hire more expensive players.. then they complain about the cost of watching the games on TV or live

      not just the NFL. yankee fans want ownership to write unlimited checks no matter how many players are hurt and way above the luxury tax

    • Don't charge $500 per game for a family to go.

      For an NFL game, any seats but nose-bleed, that's low-ball.

      I gave up my Seahawks season tickets and instead bought a huge TV for my basement "Man Cave", and a subscription to see the games I want to see.

      Never again will I get raped by the live seat price, though Comcast (or whoever) will still rape me to a certain degree.

      But with Comcast (amazingly) I don't get fucked up the ass as much as with the NFL at a "live tag team match" on the field.

      - Jake

    • Actually the NFL has some of the most entertaining commercials I see. I sometimes even watch them just because of that.

  • Congress actually threatening to do something good for a change?

    • The thing about this that pisses me off is the question WHY HAVEN'T THEY ALREADY DONE IT.

      Crikey football legislation gets fast tracked and important crap like tax entitlement and immigration reform - nothing.

      Throw the bums out is basically the only reasonable thing at this point.

  • ...since "Redskins" is so harmful and offensive, how about we also ban the word 'nigger' from use in media? Or rescind copyright protection for anything that includes that offensive term.

    I mean, this is all about protecting the feelings of oppressed minorities, right?

  • Glad I didn't catch the sport virus. When the cableco put a $6 per month charge (or $72.00 per year) on my bill for "sports programming" I checked my antenna and cut out all TV programming. Stream the rest. Worked for me. I enjoy going to games but not being forced to pay for them otherwise.

  • Phuck, what a dumbth country you have now. Damn. "Idiocy? Ha! I'll show you idiocy!"

  • Sports on Slashdot. Is it the end times already?

  • After the NLF, how about Wall Street? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Required Snark ( 1702878 ) on Friday October 03, 2014 @02:44AM (#48054077)
    If someone in Congress is willing to stand up to corrupt publicly subsidized major league sports, what about doing something about corrupt publicly subsidized financial institutions that have no actual oversight?

    First, the public subsidy [bloomberg.com].

    Fed funds, the U.S. overnight inter-bank lending rate, opened 0.08 percent, within the Federal Reserve’s target of zero to 0.25 percent, ICAP Plc, the world’s largest inter-dealer broker, said in an e-mailed statement.

    Fed funds traded from 0.06 percent to 0.3125 percent yesterday, according to data posted on the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s website. The fed effective, or a volume-weighted average of rates on trades arranged by major brokers, was 0.09 percent.

    This this is on Oct. 2 2014: 0.09% is free money. Who gets this free money: the big banks, B of A, Citi, Chase. Also the top four investment firms which are also banks: #1 Goldman Sachs, #2 Morgan Stanley, #3 JPMorgan Chase, #4 Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Note the overlap, there is no meaningful difference between banks and brokerage firms.

    So what is the result? Why the Fed's Zero Interest Rate Policy Isn't Working [cnbc.com].

    But, the Fed’s problem – like Japan a decade ago – is as the International Monetary Fund puts it in its latest financial stability report, the economy is “bifurcated”. Many large American companies, particularly those with global operations, are highly profitable and liquid. Unsurprisingly, for them “bank lending conditions and capital market financing remain easy”, the IMF notes.

    But many small and medium-sized companies – or the entities that typically create jobs inside America, not overseas – find it hard to raise funds. A survey conducted by the International Franchise Association in Washington, for example, notes that whereas in March half of its members expected credit conditions to improve soon, now less than a quarter expect any easing; even as Treasury yields fall.

    And the lack of any effective oversight: Bank of America fined $7.65M over accounting blunder [bizjournals.com].

    The Wall Street Journal reports the SEC charged BofA with breaking securities laws pertaining to record-keeping and internal controls after the bank disclosed in April that it had discovered a nearly $4 billion accounting error.

    So 7,650,000 divided by 4,000,000,000 = 0.019125 or 1.9125%. Note that this error existed for years, and it meant that BofA saved a huge amount of money by having $4 billion less in capital reserves then was required.

    But to understand what the fine really means it should be compared to the market capitation (total worth on the stock market), which on Oct 2 2014 was $177 billion. So 7,650,000 divided by 117,000,000,000 = 4.32203e-05 = .0000432203 = 0.00432203%. Ohh, that must have really really hurt.

    No one was held accountable. No one lost their job, was demoted, got a bad mark on their permanent record. The stock holders end up paying the fine. That's what it means to have no effective oversight.

    So the NFL is in trouble and B of A gets a fine valued at 0.00432203% of their current net worth. That is why my brain hurts.

  • All this huffing and puffing from Congress Critters can be solved by dumping some football tickets into constituent service offices, you know, to invite the staff to come see all the value a football team contributes to the community and see what NFL is all about.

    Free of course, no strings attached. Just have some tickets.

    And forget you were upset about blackouts and antitrust, okay? Okay!

  • The NFL dick riding by the so called free market loving ass hats. So don't you think it's about time to ween the NFL off the government teet or does the free market not apply to wealthy corporations....

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