The current attack against the NFL’s antitrust division can go in several different directions. Some good, some not so good. Some disastrous.
The league could potentially be ordered to stop selling game packages to cable, satellite, and/or streaming providers. The league could possibly lose its entire antitrust exemption, ending the NFL’s ability to sell broadcast rights in a block.
The end result could be chaos for the NFL. Chaos in the form of some teams earning many millions more for their home games than other teams. Chaos in the form of the end of TV revenue sharing. Chaos in the form of the implosion of the salary-cap formula.
Chaos in the form of, eventually, cries that the federal government needs to “save pro football!”
It’s the same kind of thing college football is currently dealing with, as a result of the chaos that has unfolded in the aftermath of a series of successful antitrust lawsuits against the NCAA.
For college football (and other high-revenue college sports), the crumbling of the apparatus for its antitrust violations has created a mess that the NCAA and its members can’t (or won’t) solve on their own. For the NFL, the same thing could happen.
The difference is this: College football could cure its chaos by embracing collective bargaining. The NFL’s chaos could be incurable.
The NFL’s chaos could create the situation the league managed to avoid in the early 1960s, when the popular teams at the time (led by the Giants) were willing to share and share alike with the other 12 franchises as to the overall TV money. Suddenly, after decades of selling the TV rights in one bundle and carving up the money in 32 equal shares, a dramatic inequality could emerge.
Some teams would be highly profitable. Some teams would be less profitable. Some teams could become unprofitable.
Competitive balance could suffer. The league could eventually separate into multiple leagues. One league would consist of the teams that can sell their rights for top dollar, and the other would be made up of teams that can’t. There could be, in theory, relegation and promotion based on overall revenue and profitability.
However it goes, the collapse of the antitrust exemption — or, at a minimum, a court order preventing the league from selling game packages to cable, satellite, and streaming providers — could spark an avalanche of changes to the way the NFL does business.
And, ultimately, the changes could throw out the pigskin with the hot dog water.
It’s all to be determined. But there’s a worst-case scenario that the league needs to take seriously. Because, after decades of not having to even think about it, it’s on the radar screen of possibilities.