Warren, Sanders, Castro, Ryan Warn ESPN Deals with NFL, MLB May Restrict Competition, Increase Costs for Sports Fans
“ESPN’s deals with the NFL and the MLB would give the sports media giant new degrees of control…for two of the most profitable sports leagues in the country. We have serious concerns that fans and competitors will suffer as a result.”
Members concerned about loss of ESPN as a source of independent sports journalism
“[These deals] would likely harm ESPN’s competitors, who could find it challenging to compete, ultimately resulting in higher prices and fewer choices for viewers”
Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), along with Representatives Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), and Patrick Ryan (D-N.Y.) sent a letter to the heads of Disney, ESPN, the National Football League (NFL), and Major League Baseball (MLB), raising concerns that ESPN’s proposed deals with the leagues could restrict competition and raise prices for sports fans.
Last month, Disney-owned ESPN announced a $3 billion deal to acquire the NFL Network, the distributor of NFL games, as well as the NFL’s fantasy football league — a competitor of ESPN’s fantasy football league — and the rights to distribute NFL RedZone, a live-TV feed that shows whip-around coverage of Sunday football games. In exchange, the NFL will take a 10% stake in ESPN. This deal raises a number of concerns, including the possibility that the NFL could give ESPN preferential treatment over other media companies, entrenching ESPN’s dominance in sports distribution.
“[This deal] would likely harm ESPN’s competitors, who could find it challenging to compete, ultimately resulting in higher prices and fewer choices for viewers if disadvantaged competitors subsequently fail,” said the members.
The NFL’s stake in ESPN could give the NFL preferential treatment over other sports leagues, offering more advantageous terms, pricing, or time slots for games. The NFL’s partial ownership could also hurt fans, players, and anyone involved in the business of sports that relies on ESPN’s independent coverage of NFL news, which has included developing stories and, at times, scandalous behavior in professional sports.
“The ESPN-NFL deal raises concerns regarding whether reporters and journalists would be under pressure from ESPN executives or their new part-owner regarding coverage…[which] could negatively affect the public as well as League players and other industry stakeholders whose interests are tied up in decisions the leagues make,” wrote the lawmakers.
ESPN executives have suggested that the company is open to replicating these types of “unconventional” equity deals with other sports leagues, creating the potential for more consolidation and consumer harm.
In August, ESPN also announced an agreement to fold MLB.TV into its new direct-to-consumer service, giving ESPN the exclusive right to “sell out-of-market regular-season games digitally and in-market games for five clubs over the next three years.”
The move could allow ESPN to “make it more difficult and more expensive for…subscribers to watch games…[or] force fans to subscribe to the ESPN media ecosystem in order to access games and charge an additional price to watch local teams’ games,” said the Congress members.
“ESPN’s deals with the NFL and the MLB would give the sports media giant new degrees of control…for two of the most profitable sports leagues in the country. We have serious concerns that fans and competitors will suffer as a result,” concluded the members.
The lawmakers asked the recipients to respond by October 8, 2025, explaining how the announced deals will affect the prices for fans to access content, whether fans will have to buy add-on subscriptions to access MLB content, how NFL and ESPN will safeguard against giving each other preferential treatment to the detriment of competitors, how ESPN will prevent infringing on competitors’ distribution rights if it establishes RedZone-type channels for other sports leagues, and what steps ESPN will take to prevent conflicts of interest and preserve the journalistic independence of its reporters.
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