President Trump ripped the NFL on Sunday, accusing the league of “price gouging” longtime fans with its new push to move games to streaming platforms.
Trump said football bigs are making it harder and more expensive for fans to enjoy watching their favorite teams play as the franchise makes exclusive deals with Netflix and Amazon.
“There’s something very sad when they take football away from many, many people,” Trump told “Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson,” which airs on Sinclair Broadcast stations across the country.
“It’s tough. It’s a tough [one]. You’ve got people that love football. They’re great people. They don’t make enough money to go and pay this,” he added.
“It’s tough and they could be killing the golden goose.”
At the heart of the problem is the NFL’s decision to move certain games to Netflix, Amazon, YouTube and Peacock, sending the average fan scrambling to sign up for each service.
Thursday Night Football, for instance, streams exclusively on Amazon Prime, which starts at $14.99 a month.
Trump seemed to support critics’ assertion that NFL’s shift could also be a violation of the Sports Broadcasting Act and the antitrust exemption it grants to the league.
With the Department of Justice opening an antitrust investigation against the NFL last month, Trump weighed in and stated flatly that he wasn’t a fan of the new business model.
“I don’t like it. They’re making a lot of money. They could make a little bit less,” he said of the NFL. “They could let the people see. You have people that live for Sunday.”
“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,” the president concluded.
The NFL has previously argued that viewers have already abandoned traditional broadcasters and have made streaming their go-to way to watch games.
The league also maintains that the vast majority of its games are free on broadcast television, including all of the “games in the markets of the competing teams.”
“The NFL’s media distribution model is the most fan- and broadcaster-friendly in the entire sports and entertainment industry,” an NFL spokesperson told The Post last month.
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