It looks like the NFL and the NCAA college football broadcasting schedules are set to clash, in contravention to law.
According to the 1961 antitrust law that allows the league to pool its team’s TV rights and sell as a package.
The NFL and College football have largely coexisted well with their scheduling but there could be a fallout this upcoming season.
The major conflicts typically come in the second to last Saturday in December with College football now hosting a four-team playoff, then extended to 12 and now set to be extended to 14 teams.
The battle for eyes crosses sports as the Major League Baseball, NBA and NHL all playing second fiddle to the big fish, the NFL.
When asked for comment, the league said.
“I’m not sure it changes much what we do, we’ve been in those windows traditionally,” commented Brian Rolapp, the NFL’s chief media and business officer. “I mean, we’ve always just, regardless of the competition, put the strongest games (on), now, it’s not changing. You know, so we can’t control what they do. We’ve had a long history of sort of working with them. But I think they probably see that they have limited windows to play on Saturday, which is their choice, and we were like, we’re still going to do what we do.”
College football has no choice due to its new playoffs to schedule multiple games on that December Saturday, diluting the product while the MLB World Series had its worst ratings ever on the Monday after the game-laden weekend, with Monday Night Football dominating.
