“They’re going to have to pay $1,000 a game?” was the latest jab from Donald Trump, discussing how expensive watching football has become for an average fan. The NFL faces mounting criticism due to the soaring prices from streaming services, while the government is currently investigating the league’s antitrust status. The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand poured cold water on the President’s eye-catching claim.

“The NFL doesn’t cost $1K per game, as President Trump stated in this interview,” Marchand wrote on X. “While there is no real per game number, 87 percent of its games are on broadcast, over-the-air TV. It does have games on subscription services, including Amazon Prime Video, ESPN, and Netflix.”

Donald Trump recently sat down for an interview with Sharyl Attkisson. She asked whether watching football has become ridiculously overpriced and whether his administration will take drastic steps to address it.

“You’ve got people that live for Sunday,” Trump stated. “They live, they can’t think about anything else, and then all of a sudden they’re going to have to pay $1,000 a game?”

With the addition of streaming services like Netflix, Peacock, Amazon, and Prime Video, prices have certainly gone up. That applies to both consumers and cable TV networks fighting to buy broadcast rights. But the narrative of someone spending $1000 per game is an overstatement.

While watching the NFL at home, nobody is paying that figure on streaming services. However, to watch all the NFL games, whether in the regular season or the playoffs, a viewer pays for the premium subscription as well as the basic cable packages. The total cost of everything could go up to $1000 to watch an entire season, especially considering the billing of the 2025 season. The price may cover one person on paper, but an entire family can enjoy the full NFL season for the same price tag.

The Department of Justice launched a formal probe into the NFL’s media distribution recently. At the heart of the investigation is the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961, giving the league the special protection of selling television rights as a central entity for its 32 teams. The NFL will now look into how this protection is playing into the rights distribution on streaming platforms, fearing decentralization. After all, the law was made in an era when streaming services did not exist.

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr has alleged that the league is putting too many games behind a subscription. And, The Athletic reported in March that the NFL was considering letting teams sell rights to preseason games to digital streamers.

FOX owner Rupert Murdoch reportedly urged Donald Trump to look into this matter, as the streaming giants are threatening the future of giant broadcasting networks.

To its defense, the NFL, however, kept its stance strong. As per the league officials, 87% games are free for broadcasting, which Andrew Marchand also concurred. Amid these growing concerns among the NFL teams, the Green Bay Packers recently stated that the antitrust reform could put the team in serious jeopardy.

The Green Bay Packers raise concerns about antitrust reform

The Green Bay Packers are distinct from the other teams in the NFL. While the other teams are backed by the billionaire owners, the Packers are publicly owned and the only non-profit team in the league with over half a million shareholders. Hence, they rely heavily on the antitrust exemption.

Amid the investigation, Aaron Popkey, the Director of Public Affairs at the Packers, wrote a letter to Scott Fitzgerald, Chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Administrative State, Regulatory Reform, and Antitrust, with a hopeful request.

“As the only publicly owned franchise in American professional sports, and by far the smallest market team in the NFL, we respectfully request that the Committee recognise the essential role this legacy piece of legislation has played in sustaining our small market team.” Aaron Popkey wrote.

Games that are booked for telecast on streaming services are placed on the local broadcast channels in the home markets of the teams playing. For the Packers, that limits them to just Green Bay and Milwaukee. But the rest of the markets in the state of Wisconsin don’t have access to those games on broadcast. It affects their monopoly in the area.

In 2025, each NFL team received $432.6 million from this shared pool, which was a record. Moreover, the franchise generates a total income of 60% from lucrative TV and streaming agreements. Given their huge salary cap, it would be hard for them to compete financially if the antitrust exception is lifted.