Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961

The Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 affects Title 15 of the United States Code, Chapter 32 "Telecasting of Professional Sports Contest" (§§ 1291-1295) [ [http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/uscode15/usc_sup_01_15_10_32.html US CODE: Title 15,CHAPTER 32—TELECASTING OF PROFESSIONAL SPORTS CONTESTS ] ]

Overview

The Sports Broadcasting Act was passed in response to a court decision which ruled that the NFL's method of negotiating television broadcasting rights violated antitrust laws. The court ruled that the "pooling" of rights by all the teams to conclude an exclusive contract between the league and CBS was illegal.

The Act overrules that decision, and permits certain joint broadcasting agreements among the major professional sports. It permits the sale of a television "package" to the network or networks, a procedure which is common today.

The law has been interpreted to include the so-called "blackout rules" which protect a home team from competing games broadcast into its home territory on a day when it is playing a game at home.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)'s broadcast packages are not subject to the antitrust exemption and it suffered for it, when the Supreme Court ruled that the NCAA's restrictive television policies were a violation of antitrust law in the 1980's when the University of Georgia and University of Oklahoma sued the NCAA over television restrictions (limit of six television appearances over two years) established in 1952.

The College Football Association, an alliance of 64 schools from the major conferences and selected independents, sold their own television package in 1984, first with ABC, and later with CBS. The Big Ten and Pacific Ten conferences sold their own separate package, to ABC.

By 1990, the landscape changed. ABC had both the CFA, Big Ten, and Pacific Ten packages, and NBC the Notre Dame home package. It was once again relegated to limited appearances.

The CFA collapsed, and in 1995, the Southeastern Conference broke from the CFA, signing a national deal with CBS. They are the only major conference guaranteed a national "game of the week" because ESPN's games may come from any of the conferences they offer.

[ [http://www.sportslawnews.com/archive/jargon/ljsportsbroadcasingact.htm Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 ] ]

Current views on the Sports Broadcasting Act

In November 2006, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, (R -PA), whose home district includes Comcast, proposed legislation to repeal the NFL's antitrust exemption under the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961.

Specter's concern was based on the National Football League's NFL Network, which is held in an extremely limited number of homes, as compared to the other broadcasters of the NFL. For the 2006-07 NFL season, each NFL team will annually earn more than $120 million in shared TV money. The league's officials negotiated various deals with CBS, NBC, FOX, and Disney, and ended up with a six-year, $24 billion broadcast and cable rights contract. The television deals end in 2011. Additionally, DirecTV will pay $700 million every year through 2010 for its Sunday Ticket package. The NFL also decided to keep an eight-game Thursday-to-Saturday night package in-house, placing it on its NFL Network.

Both the Sunday Ticket and NFL Network became issues of concern to the Senator, whose district includes DirecTV rival Comcast. Comcast's Versus network attempted to bid for the eight-game package the NFL gave to their own network, but lost.

The NFL Network still has not reached agreements with Time Warner Cable and Cablevision to carry the league-owned network. League officials wanted an excessively high per-subscriber fee for the network in relation to its programming, according to Time Warner executives. Meanwhile, Cablevision chairman Charles Dolan has said nothing publicly about his negotiations with the NFL.

The NFL Network's high per-subscriber fees charged to the cable companies force cable firms to offer the channel as a premium-tier network. This, according to the NFL, is unacceptable, and they demanded their channel be placed on a basic tier, as compared to the higher-priced sports tiers. By doing so, cable companies would have to reduce the number of basic channels or increase the basic cable package rate to comply with the NFL's request. NFL rules however, require that NFL games shown on cable channels (including the NFL Network), be shown on a broadcast television station in the markets of the participating teams (subject to blackouts when necessary).

The other major concern is the lack of availability of NFL Sunday Ticket, restricting it severely through its exclusivity with DirecTV. A similar situation happens with NASCAR HotPass, which moved from the cable companies to DirecTV in 2007, and thwarted by Major League Baseball's MLB Extra Innings, which MLB attempted to push to DirecTV exclusively starting in 2009, but was stopped by threats from legislators.

In what may be a goodwill gesture to Senator Lautenberg of New Jersey and, in an effort to sway Specter, the NFL gave Time Warner and Cablevision subscribers a free week of programming between December 24 and 30. The timing will allow subscribers to tune in to the Rutgers–Kansas State Texas Bowl matchup and another college bowl game featuring Minnesota and Texas Tech. Lautenberg has complained that many Rutgers fans in New Jersey were being unfairly denied the opportunity to watch Rutgers in the Texas Bowl because the NFL Network, which has rights to the game, has not yet reached deals with Cablevision and Time Warner Cable.

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