The NFL aired games on ten different platforms in 2025, and the correct response to that sentence is fury, not a shrug.
Netflix. Amazon Prime Video. NBC/Peacock. YouTube TV. Fox. CBS. ABC. ESPN. NFL Network. And Peacock again, separately, because Peacock counts twice in this nightmare. Sportico calculated that watching every NFL game last season cost $935 for the year — NFL-only. When you add MLB and NBA into the annual picture, the framing used by Sen. Tammy Baldwin and the FCC’s own inquiry puts the figure at over $1,500. That’s not a subscription. That’s a second car payment. It’s the cable bundle, reconstructed piece by piece and sold back to you at a markup.
This is worth dwelling on, because the cable comparison is not rhetorical flourish — it’s the actual mechanism. Cable averaged $71 to $75 a month in 2010. By 2024, it had climbed to $122 to $147. Cord-cutters spent the last decade fleeing that cost, told by the industry that streaming was the democratizing alternative. What they got instead was a dozen individual subscriptions that, assembled into something resembling full sports access, costs about the same or more — except now the user interface is worse and no single bill explains what they’re paying for.
Eighty-seven percent of sports fans say figuring out where to watch sports is at least somewhat frustrating. Fifty-seven percent have skipped watching a game because it was too expensive. Nearly half have missed a game because they didn’t have the right service. These numbers come from actual research, not instinct, which means the frustration is documented, widespread, and doing absolutely nothing to change anyone’s behavior in a position to change anything.
Sen. Baldwin introduced the For the Fans Act (S. 4301) on April 15, 2026. It would require leagues to provide free local access and cut through the platform maze. It was referred to the Senate Commerce Committee. No hearing has been scheduled. The bill exists because 400,000-plus Green Bay Packers fans across 13 Wisconsin counties are assigned to out-of-market territories and couldn’t watch their team on local TV — and the Packers wild-card game against the Bears on January 10, 2026 aired exclusively on Amazon Prime Video. Baldwin’s constituents paid for a subscription to watch their team lose in January. Her quote on introducing the bill: “It shouldn’t take ten different subscriptions and a second mortgage to watch sports.” It’s a good line. The bill is going nowhere.
Alex Groberman of The Big Lead laid out the cost clearly in April:
The FCC, for its part, opened an inquiry — MB Docket No. 26-45 — and received nearly 9,000 public comments. Nine thousand people sat down and typed their frustration into a federal docket. In response, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr told Semafor: “We’re just trying to make sure that we’re educated on these issues. It’s not clear whether there will be a regulatory outcome or not.” Educated. The FCC is getting educated on issues that 9,000 members of the public already understand perfectly well. Carr also noted that the NFL risks losing its antitrust exemption if it goes too far — “there is a point at which you sort of tip the scale, and they’ve just put too many games behind a paywall, and then that whole exemption collapses” — but the suggestion that he might actually do anything about it remains firmly theoretical.
The DOJ opened an antitrust investigation into NFL TV and streaming media deals in April 2026. Seventy-two percent of voters, across party lines, support requiring leagues to provide free local access. A Jets season ticket holder put it to OutKick as plainly as possible: “I can’t tell you how frustrating it is when I feel like I have every service, I have Jets season tickets, I have the NFL package, and then there is still games on top of that that I don’t have access to.” Jets season tickets, the NFL package, every streaming service — and still not enough.
The NFL spent $1,970,000 lobbying Congress in 2025, using Ballard Partners, a firm with direct ties to the current administration. Bipartisan public support, a Senate bill, a federal inquiry, and a DOJ investigation — and the league spent two million dollars to make sure none of it lands. Calling this an accident would be generous. It’s the plan, running exactly on schedule.
