The NFL might just have a feud on its hands with President Donald Trump.
In April, the U.S. Department of Justice launched an investigation into the NFL and whether it has engaged in "anticompetitive tactics that harm consumers." Republican Sen. Mike Lee pointed out that NFL games have been spread across broadcast networks and streaming platforms.
Trump brought up that same point during an interview with "Full Measure." He claims there are Americans who "live for Sundays" but can't afford to watch every NFL game due to the rising prices of streaming platform memberships.
"You've got people that love football. They're great people. They don't make enough money to go and pay this," Trump said. "It's tough."
© Geoff Burke-Imagn Images
The NFL isn't backing down.
Hans Schroeder, the NFL's executive vice president of media distribution, fired back at Trump's remarks last Friday.
"We love our model," Schroeder said. "We think we have the most fan-friendly model there is of any sport or entertainment as far as distribution."
Despite the NFL's deals with Amazon and Netflix, 87% of its games are televised on ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC.
"We think broadcast [networks] have been an incredible home. 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," Schroeder said. "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."
It'll be interesting to see if Trump responds to these comments from the NFL.
