After months of negotiations, government regulators finally approved the deal between the NFL and ESPN on January 31. For millions of NFL fans, the league’s new partnership with ESPN may come at a steep price, and a U.S. Senator is sounding the alarm.

“Bad news for anyone who watches the NFL: The [Donald] Trump administration just approved a massive consolidation of sports streaming. It’s a big mistake that will mean higher costs, and fewer choices to watch games,” U.S. Senator from Massachusetts Elizabeth Warren posted on X.

This billion-dollar deal, approved by the Trump administration, allows ESPN (a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company) to take over key media assets from the NFL, including NFL Network and linear distribution rights to NFL RedZone and NFL Fantasy Football. In return, the NFL receives a 10% ownership stake in ESPN.

The agreement enables the league to expand its reach and consolidate most of its games and viewers in one place. But according to Senator Warren, it hands too much power to one channel, letting them control games however they want. This raises questions about whether this will limit the options for fans down the line.

Another big issue the senator raises is the skyrocketing cost for everyday fans. Before this deal, you could grab an NFL+ or NFL+ Premium subscription for as low as $6.99 a month or $49.99 a season, getting everything the NFL offered right there. Though the price hikes are not yet confirmed, sources believe that this will all be split up.

The NFL still owns NFL+, NFL.com, and other assets, but the major features fans loved (like RedZone and fantasy tools) have shifted to ESPN. The Walt Disney subsidiary could bundle those same perks into its ESPN Unlimited plan at $29.99 per month.

Imagine paying just the price of a large coffee for full NFL access before, and now it’s more than triple that. By paying just $10 additional a month, fans could watch the entire season earlier. But now, that amount would only cover about a single month.

That’s just some of what Senator Elizabeth Warren highlighted in her tweet. A few months back, she laid it all out in a detailed letter to the league, raising some “serious” issues with the deal.

Senator Elizabeth Warren pointed to ESPN’s “anticompetitive preferential treatment”

With this deal sealed, ESPN will control 28 total games in clean, standalone slots for its Monday Night Football broadcasts. But this is exactly what seems unfair to Senator Warren, as it could make competition in the market unhealthy for everyone else. That’s why she wrote a detailed letter to the league addressing these concerns back in September.

“The deal’s proposal to make the NFL a part-owner of ESPN gives the NFL an incentive to grant ESPN anticompetitive preferential treatment over other distribution partners,” the letter read. “This 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.”

According to the official letter, there’s real fear that the NFL’s stake in the media network could mess with the journalism side of broadcasts, too.

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However, the ink is now dry on this agreement, and only with time will the true effects start to show. For now, the new rollout is expected to begin in early April, bringing these changes to the public.