The mission statement is clear. You might not agree with the Major League Baseball commissioner on everything, but you’d probably agree with him on this.
“If there’s one thing I could want more than anything else,” Rob Manfred told me two years ago, “it would be the ability to give our fans that frictionless experience of being able to watch whatever they want, wherever they want.”
No more blackouts. No more going crazy trying to figure out if your favorite team is playing on ESPN or Fox or MLB Network or a local cable channel, or on Apple or Amazon or Netflix or Peacock or Roku or any other streaming service that might cost a few bucks. major league owners.
Last year, amid the collapse of local cable sports channels across the country, Manfred and his lieutenants were quite clear about how they would like to do this: An expansion of the league’s streaming service so you could watch every game, from every team, in the same place, for one price.
What if this were illegal?
See more information: Q&A: Rob Manfred on Trevor Bauer, payroll disparity, rule changes and TV blackouts
The commissioner’s office should be paying attention to the trial that will begin Thursday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, in which the NFL is the main defendant against allegations that its Sunday Ticket package violates antitrust law.
The Sunday Ticket package offers access to all out-of-market games, for all teams, at the same location, for one price.
The issues at trial: Bar owners claim they have to pay too much for the package because the NFL allows only one vendor to carry it; and individual sports fans claim that they have to pay a lot for the package because they have to pay to watch all the teams, even if they only want to watch one team.
If the NFL wins, that would be one less challenge for Manfred to worry about in a long list of challenges before MLB can get its all-in-one streaming service up and running for one price.
However, if the NFL loses, how MLB will have to adjust its plan to comply with the law may depend on why the jury reached its conclusions.
MLB declined to comment on the NFL case or its potential implications for baseball. But if the NFL loses, the first thing MLB will probably say is, “We have an antitrust exemption, so this wouldn’t apply to us.”
Maybe yes maybe no.
“There was and is a current vulnerability to baseball’s antitrust exemption,” said Christopher Deubert, a Massachusetts-based sports law expert and former general counsel for the Major League Soccer team D.C. United.
“I think it’s uncertain whether broadcast deals would be covered by baseball’s antitrust exemption.”
This federal antitrust exemption has survived for more than 100 years, but courts have repeatedly expressed concerns about it, and lawmakers regularly threaten to revoke it.
See more information: Bally Sports’ Troubles Could Transform How Fans Watch Sports
In 2021, Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanagh virtually invited a challenge. In an opinion on a college sports case, he wrote intentionally that baseball’s exemption had not been extended to other sports and was based on the notion that “baseball” “exhibitions” did not involve interstate commerce “even if teams regularly crossed state lines (as they do today) to make money and raise its commercial success.”
In 2022, in a case involving the contracting of four minor league teams, the Department of Justice urged a federal court to “define the exemption narrowly.” MLB and the four minor league teams solved the case this year, before the Supreme Court could decide whether to take up the issue.
What would be an example of a narrow definition of the exemption? This is what Manfred told me two years ago: “I can’t think of a place where the exemption would be really meaningful, other than franchise relocation, at this time.”
The NFL claims an antitrust exemption for broadcasting, citing a 1961 Act This allows America’s four major sports leagues to sell their “sponsored broadcast” rights as a league, rather than on a team-by-team basis. The plaintiffs challenging the NFL allege that “sponsored broadcast” means free, over-the-air commercial broadcasts, not pay TV options like satellite and streaming. If the jury agrees, it could endanger Manfred’s fluid vision.
And so could this: In a case against MLB and the NHL that was eventually settled, U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin wrote in 2012: “Making all games available as part of a package, although it may increase the global production, does not, as a matter of law, eliminate the harm done to competition by preventing individual teams from competing to sell their games outside their home territories.”
Your eyes are starting to glaze over. I understand. So here’s the question, because this is the question of antitrust law: Overall, would courts consider Manfred’s plan good or bad for consumers?
There would be little argument that putting all the games on one streaming service would certainly be convenient for fans.
“Having to look for where the game is every day is a pain in the ass,” said Steve Ross, a Penn State professor who has written extensively on sports and antitrust law.
“I do this every day. I go online and say, ‘Where is this game? Are you on MLB Network? Are you subject to blackout restrictions? Where can I go to watch? ‘”
But would the convenience of a baseball-only home provide a good deal for fans?
“Would a complete acquisition by Major League Baseball actually increase production, making it available everywhere at a decent price,” Ross said, “or would it reduce production because Major League Baseball would just be charging too much money?
“This is a factual issue that would be subject to antitrust challenge.”
MLB’s current streaming package offers access to out-of-market games: $119.99 per year for games from all 30 teams or $104.99 per year for games from any team you want to watch.
This may or may not be a better deal than allowing each team to sell their own streaming rights.
“Maybe the Yankees charged $500 and the Twins charged $20,” said Deubert, an expert in sports law.
It’s impossible to know what the future of baseball broadcasting will look like next year, let alone the next decade. Bally Sports, home of the Angels and 11 other MLB teams, is bogged down in bankruptcy proceedings and it may not exist next year.
It’s impossible to know whether the Yankees and Twins will ever agree to pool streaming revenues, given how much more the rights to broadcast Yankees games could be worth.
See more information: Q&A: What the future holds for Angels broadcasts with Bally Sports uncertain
Still, Deubert said, all major American sports leagues will closely follow legal proceedings in Los Angeles.
“If the NFL loses,” he said, “every other league will certainly be forced to change their packages in some way.
“Major League Baseball would have to make some difficult decisions in evaluating the extent to which they wanted to alter their package or assert that it is exempt under the antitrust exemption. They could potentially be challenged on that, and then you would have a real problem.”
For now, you have a real dilemma: Could a law designed to protect consumers somehow prevent Manfred from giving baseball fans what they say they want?
This story originally appeared on Los Angeles Times.
