Senators Threaten To Rescind NFL Antitrust Exemption

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.

Comments

Could they get any more special treatment?

[damn_registrars]

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

Re:Could they get any more special treatment?

[snsh]

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.

Re:Live by the sword, die by the sword

[mythosaz]

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

Re:Live by the sword, die by the sword

[rmdingler]

Is there another nonprofit that pays its CEO in excess of $40 million U.S.?

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell would be a fool to step down.

Re: Live by the sword, die by the sword

[mysidia]

I hate to disappoint you, but the FCC note says otherwise

The Federal Communications Commission repealed its sports blackout rules, which prohibited cable and satellite operators from airing any sports event that was blacked out on a local broadcast station. ....

Elimination of this rule, however, may not end all sports blackouts: sports leagues may choose to continue their private blackout policies through contractual arrangements with programming distributors. ... ...

Re:You underestimate football's popularity

[ranton]

The same could be said about pretty much everything. The things you like are incredibly boring and stupid to a lot of people.

Yes, but I'm sure that no one spends huge amounts of their tax dollars supporting his boring recreational activities...

National parks, PBS, National Endowment for the Arts, etc. There are plenty of was the government funds recreational activities.

According to Grantmakers in the Arts, public funding in the arts comes to about $1.14 billion per year. With the NFL receiving $146 million per year, the NFL is still getting a sizeable amount of money in comparison. But with about 1 in 3 Americans watching at least some football each year, football probably entertains at least as many people as the entire NEA funding does, so perhaps it is money well spent.