Washington took a hard look this week at why watching football costs so much. The House Judiciary Committee, led by Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, held a hearing on the Sports Broadcasting Act, a 1961 law that lets leagues like the NFL sell their games as one big bundle. When that law passed, the bundle meant free games on the local channel. Sixty-five years later, it means a jumble and bungle of cable, streaming apps, and the NFL's Sunday Ticket, which can run hundreds of dollars a year.
For an Ohio family that just wants to catch the Browns or the Bengals on Sunday, the math keeps getting worse. You used to flip on the TV. Now you pay for cable, then pay again for a streaming service, then sometimes pay a third time for a game that moved to a new app.
The committee's own report found that fans get forced to buy a pile of games they don't want just to see the one team they do. That looks less like free-market sports and more like a football cartel.
We're also long past the days when Ohio State fans were lucky to catch the Buckeyes on TV more than twice a year. That part is a good thing. Being able to watch every game is something we couldn't have dreamed of back then. The trouble is the constant upcharge. When the price climbs year after year, it progresses from annoying to expensive in a hurry.
The same money chase is now reshaping the college game, and not just in the seven minutes of commercials crammed between kickoffs. Look at Texas Tech, where oil billionaire Cody Campbell, a former Red Raiders lineman himself, has poured more than $60 million into the program. He's also running national ads pushing Congress to rewrite that same 1961 broadcast law, so colleges can grab a bigger slice of TV money. Campbell says the windfall would protect women's and non-revenue sports at schools that are bleeding cash. Maybe so. But it's worth asking where the money really lands.
One of Campbell's prizes is quarterback Brendan Sorsby, a former Cincinnati star handed a reported $5 million deal. A Texas judge cleared Sorsby to play this fall despite an NCAA gambling ban for placing thousands of bets, some on his own team. When a few ultra-rich men can buy a championship and lobby to pad the payout, the fans are an afterthought.
Pro or college, the folks who grew up loving these teams keep getting shoved aside for the ones who can pay to play, or in this case, pay to watch.
Lawmakers should keep the heat on. For families getting priced out of their own teams, enough is enough.
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