Sports media rights are the legal permissions that a league, club, federation or event owner sells to broadcasters and streaming services, allowing them to show its games, often exclusively, for a set number of seasons. In the United States, the law describes this as a league selling the rights of its member clubs in the telecasting of their games [1]. Economists treat these sales as a market of their own [2].
Key points
- A rights deal turns a sports event into a product that a media company pays a fee for.
- Rights revenue comes from a source that does not depend on spectators in stadium seats [3].
- Leagues often pool the rights of all their clubs and sell them together; in the US this is protected by a federal antitrust exemption [4][5].
- Rights link the sports ecosystem and the media.
Origin
Selling broadcast rights grew with television, and two events from 1960 and 1961 mark its start in the United States. On June 9, 1960, the American Football League and the American Broadcasting Corporation agreed a television deal worth just under $2 million a year, with revenue shared across the whole league [3]. In 1961 a two-year, $9.3 million exclusive contract between the NFL and CBS was blocked after a challenge under the Sherman Antitrust Act [3]. The NFL then lobbied Congress, and the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 was signed into law by President John F. Kennedy on September 30 [4].
The Act lets leagues pool the broadcasting rights held by all their teams and sign league-wide exclusive contracts with national television networks [4]. It covers football, baseball, basketball and hockey [1]. Later legal work, such as Grow (2017), describes how this exemption still shapes the way sport is broadcast in the United States [5]. Sports economics textbooks now cover the sale of these rights as a market in its own right [2].
How it works in sports media
The rights holder, such as a league, sells the right to show its games. The buyer, a broadcaster or platform, pays a fee for that right. When the rights are pooled, the league divides the income among its clubs. The 1960 AFL deal was an early case of this revenue sharing [3].
Rights income does not depend on tickets [3]. The streaming and viewership terms belong to the same topic, because they describe how the games reach an audience.
Examples
- AFL and ABC, 1960: a league-wide television deal worth just under $2 million a year [3].
- NFL and CBS, 1961: an exclusive two-year, $9.3 million contract that was blocked, which led to the Sports Broadcasting Act [3][4].
Common questions
What are sports media rights?
They are the permissions a rights holder sells to broadcasters and platforms to show its games. In US law, this is the sale of a league’s member clubs’ rights in the telecasting of games [1].
Why can leagues sell the rights of all clubs together?
In the United States, the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 allows leagues to pool the rights of their teams and sign league-wide exclusive contracts with national networks [4]. League-wide agreements with an over-the-air network are immune from federal antitrust challenge [5].
Are media rights the same as sponsorship?
No. A media rights deal gives a broadcaster the right to show the games. A sponsorship gives a brand the right to be associated with a team, league or event.
Related terms
- Sports streaming — one of the ways rights holders reach audiences.
- Viewership — the audience that watches the games.
- Sports sponsorship — a separate commercial right tied to teams and events.
- Sports advertising — the ads that broadcasters sell around the games.
- Sports ecosystem — the network of actors in which rights are traded.
Read more on Play of Values
- Media revolutions in the sports ecosystem
- Sports marketing history
- Super Bowl history and sports marketing
Sources
- Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961, 15 U.S.C. § 1291 (1961). Link
- Blair, R. D. (2011). The market for sports broadcasting rights. In Sports economics. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781139016957.010
- Moore, J. (2015). Throwback Thursday: The TV deal that created modern sports. VICE. Link
- Wikipedia. (2026). Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961. Wikimedia Foundation. Link
- Grow, N. (2017). The enduring power of the Sports Broadcasting Act. In The Oxford handbook of American sports law. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190465957.013.18