NFL makes its case to FCC

The NFL must be feeling a little like Marshall Mathers . And the FCC has been nosing around enough in the league's business to make the NFL seek out a meeting with the agency responsible for the public airwaves on which a shrinking number of NFL games are televised. Via Joe Flint of the Wall Street Journal , the NFL requested and received a meeting last week with the FCC, at a time when multiple aspects of the federal government are trying to paint a giant red "A" on the Shield.

Present at the sit-down were (among others) Hans Schroeder, who became the NFL's top media executive after Brian Rolapp grew weary of waiting for the Commissioner to retire, and FCC chairman Brendan Carr. The meeting wasn't about whether the league has exceeded the limits of its broadcast antitrust exemption but whether, as the Wall Street Journal has previously questioned in an editorial, the NFL should still have one . Per the report, Schroeder reiterated the league's mantra that 87 percent of the league's games are available on free TV.

The obvious counter, of course, is that they all should be. And the reality is that more of the games could land on non-FCC platforms, if the NFL's current effort to squeeze more blood from a stone-age TV model results in more games migrating to streaming platforms. As Schroeder has said, "Facts are stubborn things.

" They're also easily malleable into P. R. talking points.