Trumpbour

When I began teaching a class one afternoon, I raised the projector screen so I could post some quick notes.

To my surprise, a clever Penn State student wrote “Nike Lions” and “Pepsi State” boldly on the board, leaving it hidden behind the pulled down screen.

A few students laughed, probably realizing economics prompts a lot of sports decisions.

That happened more than 20 years ago.

The role of money has increased at all levels, not just college, and the Nike Lions is no longer a valid moniker. Penn State’s new sponsor is now adidas.

Also new, college players can now collect NIL revenue, and conference payouts to big universities are as large as ever.

At both the collegiate and professional level, broadcast profits drive much of what transpires. The start times for games are set by broadcasting companies, not teams. It has been that way for years.

In addition, a profit-oriented patchwork of broadcast options has emerged. The result: Finding a specific sports broadcast sometimes turns into a complicated scavenger hunt.

On a recent Sunday, I flipped to SportsNet Pittsburgh to watch a Pirates game, only to discover that day’s broadcast was on Paramount +, requiring a paid subscription to watch.

However, over 90 percent of Pirates games are on SportsNet Pittsburgh.

By contrast, college sports has been less predictable. March Madness is now all over the place, some games airing on TruTV, a cable channel better known for a practical jokes comedy program.

Penn State football can bounce from ABC, CBS, NBC, ESPN, the Big Ten Network, and, on occasion, to an altogether different streaming channel.

But no professional sports organization has done more to shake dollars from the money tree than the National Football League. Its current broadcast contract exceeds $110 billion.

Its broadcasts are regulated by the antiquated 1961 Sports Broadcasting Act, legislation that predates today’s complex media landscape.

The results have not been kind to Altoona-area fans. When a Steelers game is on a subscription channel, that legislation requires free local broadcasts for stations within 75 miles of the home team.

Unfortunately, Altoona is about 25 miles too far to qualify, forcing local Steelers fans to either pay for a subscription, head to a local sports bar, or listen on the radio instead.

Select holiday games and morning overseas NFL contests are available only on subscription channels such as the NFL Network, Amazon Prime, or Netflix.

Whether the Super Bowl will move to such a format is uncertain, but the 2027 Super Bowl will air on ESPN for the first time ever, suggesting that might eventually occur.

Congress knows the public is frustrated with the NFL’s current broadcast strategy, so the House Judiciary Committee held hearings last month.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell did not testify, suggesting change is unlikely anytime soon.

The 27-page hearing summary was entitled “The Sports Broadcasting Act: A Special-Interest Antitrust Exemption Gone Awry,” and can be easily found online.

It provides compelling evidence that Congress knows that the public is unhappy with the NFL’s highly profitable broadcast strategy.

The report asserts that a Packers fan, wanting to watch only his favorite team, might spend $480 “to purchase less than 10 games.”

It concludes more “consumer friendly models of distribution have been proposed to and rejected by the NFL.”

Despite that, the NFL’s ongoing supremacy is not guaranteed. Decades ago, boxing broadcasts on major networks were incredibly popular.

Greed in the form of pay-per-view matches meant short-term windfall profits, but boxing’s popularity never fully recovered from this overt cash-grab strategy.

Those managing today’s sports organizations would be wise to heed that lesson.

Bob Trumpbour is an assistant professor of communications at Penn State Altoona. He authored the book, “The New Cathedrals, politics and media in the history of stadium construction.” He has also worked on a freelance basis with CBS, NBC and Westwood One for more than 30 years.