As the New York Knicks convincingly defeated the Philadelphia 76ers in the first match of their second-round National Basketball Association playoff series on Monday evening, the Minnesota Timberwolves were putting up a strong challenge at Frost Bank Center against the host San Antonio Spurs, coming away with a Game One victory in that second-round series. Watching the T-Wolves and Spurs wasn’t easy: One had to have NBCSN or pay for access to the game via the Peacock streaming app.
Does this benefit or harm consumers? The FCC asked. The comment window ended March 27, with reply comments due April 13. That didn’t stop individuals from flooding the Commission on Monday with boilerplate pleas — penned by the NAB — to keep live sports accessible, easy to find and available to all.
As of Tuesday morning, some 9,271 filings have been made in response to MB Docket No. 26-45, which the Carr Commission launched in late February. In particular, the FCC wants to know how keeping live sports coverage in a pay-to-see silo may facilitate or inhibit the ability of local broadcast TV stations to meet their public interest obligations.
As the Media Bureau states in its public notice for MB Docket No. 26-45, “Many games are still available for free over broadcast TV, but there has been a surge in recent years of games going behind the paywalls of various streaming services. While this can increase the number of games and sports available to fans, many consumers today find it more difficult to find the events they want to watch and are now paying to sign up for one or more video distribution platforms that consumers can find difficult to navigate.”
The NBA, in particular, has placed playoff matches in places that require a subscription, such as Amazon Prime Video — as seen in opening round action. During the 2026 NAB Show, attempts to cast games from a Smartphone app to a hotel television were unsuccessful, leaving at least two NBA fans squinting at a laptop to follow the action.
The Carr Commission’s Public Notice points, however, to the National Football League. “In 2025, NFL games aired on 10 different services, which, according to some estimates, could cost a consumer over $1,500 to watch all games,” it pointed out. “In addition, 20 NFL regular season games and one playoff game were nationally distributed, exclusively, on four different streaming services—Amazon Prime Video, YouTube, Peacock, and Netflix. While the NFL requires streamers to syndicate/simulcast games over TV broadcast stations in the local markets of the competing teams, this is a private contractual arrangement between the NFL and its distributors. Do any other professional or collegiate sports also have such a requirement?”
As the Commission seeks to best answer that question, sports fan Melissa Pace wrote to the FCC to express her distaste for the burgeoning practice of putting games on streaming apps requiring a subscription. “As a sports fan, nothing beats gathering around the TV with my family and friends to watch our favorite teams,” she wrote. “Local TV stations bring us the biggest games, make it easy to find the action and share these moments together. But as more games move to exclusive streaming platforms, it’s becoming harder to know where to watch, and more expensive for those of us who just want to follow our teams. Having to juggle multiple subscriptions is expensive and complicated. Live sports should remain a shared experience that everyone can access, no matter where we live or what we can afford. That’s why I’m asking you to help keep live sports on broadcast TV. Please stand with local broadcasters and the fans who rely on them.”
Upon closer inspection, however, this appears to be a prepared statement individuals could put their name to and submit to the Commission, as the wording is identical to filings made by Jeff Asmussen, John Nicholas Lombardi Jr., Harry Garner, and a multitude of others who wished to make their views known to the FCC — even though the filing window had closed and the statements were provided to each individual by a third party.
That would be the National Association of Broadcasters, which created an online form for “legislators” making it easy for any consumer to fill out and submit.
The result are the thousands of filings brought to the NAB’s attention on Monday.
