WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) is introducing a new bill to stop professional sports leagues from blacking out games for fans, end the complicated web of streaming services, and cut costs for viewers across the country. The bill will ensure that local sports fans can watch their favorite sports team in one single location, for free. Baldwin’s new legislation comes as the evolving digital landscape has turned watching sports into a costly subscription nightmare, with fans paying thousands of dollars because streaming giants like Netflix and Amazon Prime buy up exclusive broadcasting rights and put big games behind their big paywalls.
“Rooting for our favorite sports teams brings all walks of life together – but in order for that to happen, families need to actually be able to watch the games. Gigantic streaming services and big sports leagues have created a complicated and expensive maze of subscriptions that either stop fans from watching their teams altogether or gouge fans to simply watch the teams they love,” said Senator Baldwin. “That’s why I’m introducing the For the Fans Act, because it shouldn’t take ten different subscriptions and a second mortgage to watch sports. My bill will stop the big streaming platforms and sports leagues from blacking out games for fans and ensure local fans always have a single place they can go to watch their team for free.”
The For the Fans Act improves access for consumers of professional sports broadcasts by requiring free viewing access for local fans and ending blackouts on league-owned streaming services, like NBA League Pass or MLB.tv. The bill applies to professional baseball, basketball, football, hockey, and soccer leagues. The bill makes an exception for minor league teams and leagues with fewer than eight teams.
In Wisconsin, for a local fan to be able to watch all of the Packers, Brewers, and Bucks games, families would have to spend more than $1,500 annually. The bill comes after the Packers’ playoff game in January against the Bears was solely available on Amazon Prime for five of Wisconsin’s seven media markets. This bill also comes as more than 400,000 Green Bay Packers fans in 13 Wisconsin counties are assigned to an out-of-state local TV market, which means these Wisconsin households could get Minnesota Vikings or Detroit Lions games, not Packers games, when those teams are playing at the same time. Senator Baldwin has worked to address this issue with her Go Pack Go Act. The For the Fans Act would also address this issue for those 400,000 Wisconsinites.
The bill has two major provisions to lower the cost of watching sports:
No Blackouts on League-Owned Streaming Services
The bill prohibits league-owned streaming services, or “league streamers,” from the deceptive practice of charging fans a subscription fee only to turn around and blackout certain games from the platform. The legislation requires these streamers to provide access to view every game within their respective leagues. Thanks to this provision, consumers who subscribe to services like MLB.TV and NBA League Pass will no longer face blackouts when games are played in their local media market or set to air exclusively on a third-party streaming service like Amazon Prime Video.
Free Access for Local Fans
The bill requires professional leagues to provide access for local fans to watch all games for teams based in the state in which they reside, through a single, free option. This may include streaming on an ad-supported service or a local over-the-air broadcast. If a sports team’s local fans reside outside the state in which the team plays in, the bill allows the Federal Communications Commission to add locations that would be subject to free access to watch the game. Each team would have the choice as to where they could broadcast the game, including on TV, a streaming service, or online, and that service can be ad-supported.
Full text of the bill is available here.
A one-pager is available here.
An online version of this release is available here.
