Forget an average fan, even the President himself is not backing the NFL’s shift toward paid streaming services. Donald Trump has openly accused the league of “price gouging” and called the growing need for multiple subscriptions “very sad,” arguing that it takes football away from the loyal viewers who have helped build the sport’s popularity in the first place. The timing only makes the pushback more significant. 

The NFL is preparing to enter its next round of media-rights negotiations with broadcast and streaming partners, and public criticism from the President adds another layer of pressure to a model that is already under legal scrutiny. But despite the backlash, the league has not softened its stance and has pushed back just as openly.

“We love our model. We think we have the most fan-friendly model there is. …We think we’re the most available, broadly distributed of any sports & entertainment,” said NFL EVP Hans Schroeder, per Jori Epstein of YahooSports.

Top Stories

NFL

Former Raiders Player’s Cause of Death Revealed Following Sudden Passing at 35

16 hrs ago

NFL

CeeDee Lamb Publicly Opposes Jerry Jones’ Longstanding Belief as Cowboys WR Makes Clear Request to NFL

1 day ago

NFL

NFL Accused of ‘Punishing’ the Broncos Over Sean Payton’s Troubled History With the League

1 day ago

NFL

Mark Davis Sells 25% Of the Raiders’ Minority Equity & It Has Massive Implications on Tom Brady

1 day ago

Where Do the Osu Still Lack Elite Talent?

Let Tony do the scouting, you just make the pick.

Pick your positions. Get Tony’s top 5:

QB

RB

FB

WR

TE

C

CB

DE

DT

G

ILB

OLB

P

PK

S

T

View Tony’s Picks

Over the past few years, the NFL has steadily split its broadcasting rights between traditional television networks and streaming platforms like Amazon Prime Video and Netflix. As that shift happened, criticism from fans followed almost immediately because of how expensive it has become to watch the entire NFL season across multiple services.

According to reports, an average fan may now need to spend more than $600 across different platforms to follow a full season. That is exactly why Trump criticized the model during an interview with Full Measure. Asked whether the government would step in, Trump stopped short of promising action but made his displeasure clear.

“You’ve got people that love football, they’re great people, they don’t make enough money to go and pay this, it’s tough,” Trump said, while also adding, “I don’t know, but I don’t like it. They’re making a lot of money, they could make a little bit less and they could let the people see.”

Trump also warned that the league could be “killing the golden goose” by making its product harder for everyday fans to access. “You have people that live for Sunday,” he said. “They can’t think about anything else, and then all of a sudden they’re going to have to pay a thousand dollars a game. It’s crazy. I’m not happy about it.” While that figure appears to be an exaggeration of the actual full-season streaming cost, the broader concern around fragmented rights and rising consumer expenses has become difficult for the league to ignore.

Interestingly, Trump’s comments arrived just one month after The Wall Street Journal first reported that the Department of Justice had opened an investigation in April into whether the NFL was engaging in anticompetitive behavior and overcharging consumers through its media-rights structure.

The review is tied to the league’s broadcast distribution decisions and the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961, which gives the NFL limited antitrust protection to collectively sell television rights. Critics argue that the law was created for a much simpler broadcast era and should now be re-examined as more games move to Netflix, Amazon, YouTube, and Peacock.

The conversation largely centers around how complicated and expensive it has become for fans to simply watch their favorite teams, especially as leagues continue carving up packages across multiple streaming services. For decades, the NFL primarily relied on traditional broadcast partners such as NBC, CBS, FOX Sports, and ESPN. Now, however, Amazon carries Thursday Night Football, Netflix streams Christmas Day games, Peacock hosts exclusive matchups, and YouTube TV owns Sunday Ticket.

As a result, fans are often forced to subscribe to several different services just to consistently watch the league throughout the season. That concern has not only come from fans and Trump. The National Association of Broadcasters has also urged federal officials to look into the league’s media deals, arguing that major streaming companies are increasingly putting live sports behind paywalls and creating a more costly and confusing experience for viewers.

Financially, though, the system has been enormously successful for the NFL. The league’s current media-rights agreements are reportedly worth roughly $110 billion overall. Out of that, FOX reportedly pays around $2.2 billion annually, with CBS close behind at $2.1 billion. NBC contributes approximately $2 billion, while Amazon reportedly pays about $1 billion annually for Thursday Night Football rights alone.

ESPN’s package is even larger, reportedly worth about $2.7 billion per year, while YouTube’s Sunday Ticket deal is reportedly valued at around $2 billion annually. Netflix has also entered the NFL rights picture through its Christmas Day games, further showing how valuable even limited NFL inventory has become for streaming platforms.

The current agreements, worth around $10 billion annually, are set to run through 2033. But commissioner Roger Goodell is already preparing for the next round of negotiations. The league also has the ability to revisit some of its current deals before 2033, with reported opt-out windows after the 2029 season for Amazon, CBS, FOX and NBC, and after the 2030 season for ABC/ESPN. And according to reports, the NFL is targeting a future media package worth nearly $15.9 billion annually, which would represent roughly a 58% increase from the current structure.

The league also has flexibility built into some of its current deals, with potential opt-out windows later this decade that could allow it to seek even larger payments if ratings, streaming demand, and an expanded schedule strengthen its position.

So when you look at the rising costs for fans, the government investigation, and now Donald Trump publicly criticizing the system, it becomes easier to understand why the NFL’s media model is suddenly under a microscope. At the same time, though, the league has continued standing behind its approach and has repeatedly defended the current system.

Roger Goodell defended the NFL’s streaming model

Even though the Department of Justice has opened an investigation into the NFL’s streaming model, Roger Goodell and the league have continued defending their approach, pointing out that roughly 87% of NFL games are still broadcast on free television. Just last month, the commissioner said:

“It’s the most accessible game out there, and most accessible in any league. Over 87% of our games go on free television, every single one of our games, the two participating teams, it’s in their home market. We go to platforms that are new. We went to ESPN back in the 80s. That has been a great move for our fans and has developed new ways to engage with the NFL, but we’ve been surviving and thriving on the basis of being available to the broadcast audience.”

Schroeder made a similar argument while defending the league’s streaming partnerships, saying the NFL is not abandoning broadcast television but adding a limited number of games on platforms where fans already spend time.

“We think broadcast [networks] have been an incredible home,” Schroeder said, per ESPN. “And, now, we also know fans are increasingly spending their time on other platforms as well. They tune into broadcast for the NFL and that’s where we want to be. But we also want to be on these platforms with a limited amount of our games where we know our NFL fans are already as well.”

He specifically pointed to Netflix as an example of that strategy. “When we’re going onto Netflix, we’re going onto a platform that is already massively adopted and a huge number of viewers on that platform already, including a huge number of NFL fans,” Schroeder added.

Still, there is an important nuance in this entire debate. Goodell’s argument mainly focuses on access to local-market games, while the Department of Justice and Donald Trump appear more focused on how accessible the league’s full content ecosystem has become for fans nationwide.

On paper, it is not necessarily wrong for the NFL to move toward streaming platforms either. After all, streaming continues growing as a share of television consumption every single year. Just look at the numbers from this year alone.

According to Nielsen’s February 2026 edition of The Gauge, 48% of all television viewing came through streaming services compared to 21.7% on broadcast television and 20% on cable. Ironically, that same month also featured both the Super Bowl and the Olympics. So from the NFL’s perspective, the league is simply following where viewers already are.

But the larger concern is not necessarily that the NFL is embracing streaming while slowly moving away from traditional television. The bigger issue is how fragmented the viewing experience has become.

Right now, the league has media relationships with Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, and YouTube TV, with games divided across multiple major streaming platforms. And that is where frustration from fans really starts building because keeping up with the entire NFL season now often requires juggling several expensive subscriptions at once.