Fans would have had to spend $1,000+ per season to watch all NFL games across platforms, and that just didn’t sit right with the DOJ. They had to check if the league was making games unnecessarily expensive and fragmented. But an investigation, even though it is a first-of-its-kind, wasn’t enough. So, the U.S. Senate is getting involved with a bill that could change how fans watch games for good.

The latest developments from the U.S. Senate hint at Senator Tammy Baldwin’s plans to propose a bill that would make game streaming easier for the fans. The bill will require all nationally-televised games, including a team from a given state, to be available throughout the state for free, through broadcasting or streaming on a consistent channel or service.

“It is leveling the playing field for fans,” said Tammy Baldwin in conversation with The Athletic‘s Andrew Marchand. “Sports leagues and teams of all sizes will continue to be able to make money from advertising and media rights. We just want to have some basic ground rules to bring down costs for fans.”

Since the 1980s, the NFL has ensured free games to be aired on over-the-air network affiliates in local markets. Almost 87% of its games are available on local TV, which is more than other sports that have migrated to paid platforms. But details from the last season speak otherwise. To watch every game, a fan spends approximately $1,000 on subscriptions for just one season, which, for many, is a luxury. So, introduced as the “For the Fans Act,” the legislation is designed to guarantee that local viewers always have one free option to watch their team play, either through an over-the-air broadcast or an ad-supported streaming service available statewide.

Baldwin’s bill aims to prevent teams from extracting more money from fans for game access, arguing their significant earnings from advertisements and media rights are sufficient. Additionally, the bill also aims to make games free throughout the state, not just in a local community.

“For many fans in Wisconsin, the only place to watch the game was on Amazon Prime, so families were forced to pay Jeff Bezos just to watch the game,” Baldwin said. “It’s extremely frustrating to not know how or where to watch the games we love. It’s also damn expensive.”

Baldwin was inspired by the Chicago Bears vs. the Green Bay Packers playoff game in January to work on the new bill. Despite the Packers coming from the state of Wisconsin, the game was only free to watch in Green Bay and Milwaukee. For the rest of the state, they were required to watch it on Amazon, via subscription. According to Baldwin’s office, five of Wisconsin’s seven media markets were affected by that distribution setup, highlighting how existing local-market rules can leave large portions of a team’s home state without free access despite federal broadcast protections.

If Baldwin’s bill becomes law, the whole state could enjoy the game for free, not just selected places. Moreover, it will also remove local blackouts on out-of-market services when the game is available only on another streaming service. It is a great initiative for the fans, but there are things that still remain unclear. The proposal would also prohibit league-owned streaming platforms from charging subscription fees while still blacking out certain locally available games, a long-standing complaint among users of services like NBA League Pass and MLB.TV.

For a state with only one team, such as Missouri with the Kansas City Chiefs, the rule is straightforward. When the Chiefs are playing, every resident of Missouri will be able to watch the game for free. The bill does not yet clarify how this would apply to states with multiple teams. It does, however, allow the Federal Communications Commission to define additional nearby regions as part of a team’s local fan footprint when necessary, acknowledging that fandom often extends beyond state borders.

For example, California and Florida each have three teams. For example, the Los Angeles Rams, Los Angeles Chargers, and the San Francisco 49ers are from California. If one of them is playing, will the game be free to all, or just to the local people?

If it is free to the entire state, then that means California will have more free games than the other states and can create a rift among the fans. While it does become an obstacle in the NFL’s hopes of pivoting to multiple streaming platforms, especially with the hopes of earning $15.9 billion annually, there are some unanswered questions that Tammy Baldwin needs to answer.

The NFL’s $15.9 billion vision under fire

The league’s current deal with its broadcasting partners, including Amazon, ESPN, FOX, NBC, and CBS, runs until 2032. According to the current streaming rights, FOX pays the highest with $2.2 billion, followed by CBS ($2.1 billion), NBC ($2 billion), and Amazon ($1 billion). There are additional verticals as well, including Netflix’s Christmas Day package and agreements like Sunday Ticket and select games tied to YouTube.

However, the current broadcasting contract has a clause that allows the NFL to opt out in 2029. So, rather than just waiting, Goodell is hoping to put his plan into motion as soon as possible. It’s a move that several reports have all but confirmed.

The Department of Justice’s probe is examining whether the league’s bundled media-rights strategy, made possible by the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961, which allows teams to sell television rights collectively, still serves consumers in an era where more games are moving behind subscription paywalls.

“And right on cue, MoffettNathanson is out with a new report predicting the average annual value of NFL rights deals will rise to $15.9 billion after renegotiations—including the carve-outs of additional smaller packages, likely to sell to Netflix or YouTube,” Puck’s Matthew Belloni reported. “That’s 58 percent higher than the current deals.”

The $15.9 billion value is almost 58% more than the current amount, which currently exceeds $10 billion annually across broadcast partners, with reports also linking to an additional multi-billion-dollar annual increase if new digital packages are carved out during early renegotiations tied to the league’s 2029 opt-out window. Reportedly, the current agreement is the highest-valued in sports history, worth over $110 billion. So, why is Roger Goodell trying so hard to update the terms early on? Part of that urgency also comes as networks themselves prepare for renegotiation pressure ahead of the opt-out window, with traditional broadcasters weighing whether they can match escalating bids expected from major tech platforms entering the live-sports marketplace.

One reason behind that could be the NBA’s latest 11-year deal worth $76 billion. The deal reportedly comes at a staggering 160% increase from the NBA’s previous contract. With the NBA already one step ahead of the NFL, we could very well be looking at the league taking similar steps in the future.

At the same time, lawmakers from both parties have begun questioning whether the NFL’s long-standing antitrust exemption under the 1961 law should continue unchanged as streaming becomes central to distribution, a debate that adds another layer of uncertainty to how the league’s next media-rights cycle could unfold.