Why NFL, Packers are battling with Wisconsin Rep. Scott Fitzgerald

The National Football League and the Green Bay Packers are criticizing Wisconsin’s U.S. Rep. Scott Fitzgerald for leading a hearing scrutinizing the Sports Broadcasting Act, a decades-old law the Packers say is crucial to their survival.

Wisconsin’s members of Congress have lined up on opposite sides of the issue, with Rep. Tony Wied from Green Bay leading a bipartisan letter urging the House Judiciary Committee, which includes three Wisconsin Republicans, to keep the law as is to protect small-market teams.

Fitzgerald, who chairs the House Administrative State, Regulatory Reform, and Antitrust Subcommittee that held a Wednesday, June 10 hearing, argues the 1961 law was enacted in a different media landscape. He says it’s Congress’ job to examine whether the law’s antitrust carveout is now harming consumers, who have to pay for multiple streaming services.

“The [SBA] was designed to facilitate the distribution of games through free, over-the-air television,” Fitzgerald said at the hearing. “It was not intended to provide a perpetual shield for leagues to coordinate the sale of media rights across every new technology and distribution platform that emerges. Yet, that is effectively what has happened.”

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But Fitzgerald’s role has made him a target of backlash from the NFL – and his home-state team.

In a June 8 call with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, NFL executive vice president Jeff Miller called it “a bit quizzical” why Fitzgerald and the committee are “taking a look at something that has worked so well, for so many years, for fans and the NFL.”

“I don’t know why a congressman from Wisconsin is pursuing an eight-month investigation [into a law] that works to the great benefit of his constituents, the city of Green Bay, the state of Wisconsin and the Green Bay Packers,” said Miller, a Wisconsin native.

Under the law, the league collectively negotiates contracts with TV networks and distributes the revenue equally among all 32 teams. The Packers say the current model helps them compete on the same level as teams from larger markets.

Aaron Popkey, the Packers’ director of public affairs, said the uncertainty over what Congress plans to revise in the SBA should concern fans.

“The financial future of the small-market club would be at jeopardy,” Popkey said. “You’ve seen us refer to this as an existential threat, and that’s truly what it is.”

If the law is overhauled, as the Packers and the NFL fear, teams would be left to seek their own distribution agreements. Large-market teams like the Chicago Bears and Los Angeles Rams could strike bigger deals than small-market teams like the Packers.

In Miller’s view, that could result in 32 different distributors and further increase prices for fans.

“The SBA ensures what we think is an incredibly efficient and fan-friendly market,” he said.

Fitzgerald has said modernizing the law wouldn’t affect the revenue-sharing model, calling it a “red herring” raised by the NFL. Asked by the Journal Sentinel how much keeping the Packers in Green Bay weighs into his considerations about updating the law, Fitzgerald said “zero.”

“The teams have really nothing to say in this area that the league couldn’t represent,” Fitzgerald said in an interview. “I really don’t care how they divide up the pie amongst the teams, and the NFL is the example of, the league runs everything.”

The Judiciary Committee released an interim report two days before the hearing, noting its oversight “may inform legislative reforms” to the SBA but didn’t detail what those might include. The full committee and Fitzgerald’s subcommittee began investigating NFL broadcasting practices in August.

The NFL says 87% of their games are available on broadcast TV, though the committee’s report pokes holes in those numbers. The league also touts free access in home markets. In Wisconsin, that includes the Green Bay and Milwaukee areas but excludes other regions, which members of Congress have attempted to address.

Members of the subcommittee scrutinized the NFL Sunday Ticket service that fans use to watch out-of-market games, which costs $186 per season. In the hearing, Fitzgerald added that NFL’s deal with Netflix was the “straw that broke the camel’s back.”

The U.S. Department of Justice is also investigating the NFL for possible anticompetitive tactics over concerns that consumers can’t affordably watch games.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell declined an invitation to testify before the subcommittee June 10, which Fitzgerald said didn’t surprise him. Fitzgerald added he’s talked to the NFL’s government relations team “along the way.”

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Wied, who represents northeastern Wisconsin, and Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden, representing western Wisconsin, signed a letter urging the committee to “preserve the SBA’s core protections while maintaining appropriate oversight.”

Wied co-led the letter with Rep. Tim Kennedy, a Democrat who represents Buffalo, New York, another small-market NFL city. Fitzgerald, who represents areas west of Milwaukee, argued the NFL has leverage to have each of its teams lobby their members of Congress.

Republican U.S. Rep. Tiffany, who’s running for governor, didn’t provide new comments for this story. His spokeswoman previously said he hasn’t spoken on the SBA because NFL officials hadn’t testified. At least one of his Democratic opponents, Mandela Barnes, criticized Tiffany for not coming out stronger on the issue.

Tiffany and Republican Rep. Glenn Grothman both serve on the full House Judiciary Committee looking at the Sports Broadcasting Act. Grothman didn’t respond to a request for comment on his stance by deadline; neither did Republican Rep. Bryan Steil, Democratic Rep. Mark Pocan, Democratic Rep. Gwen Moore or Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson.

Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin has introduced separate legislation addressing consumer complaints. In part, the bill would prohibit game blackouts on league-owned streaming services. But her office says she supports the Packers’ efforts to keep the SBA intact.

“Watching our Green and Gold has never been this complicated or expensive – and it’s because these billionaire-owned streaming giants and the NFL have created a complicated and expensive maze of subscriptions,” Baldwin said in a statement. “The solution is not to bankrupt the Packers – it’s to pass my bill to make sure Wisconsinites in every part of the state can watch the Packers games in one place and for free.”

Hope Karnopp can be reached at HKarnopp@usatodayco.com.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Why NFL, Packers are going head-to-head with a Wisconsin Republican