Abstract
The migration of live sports from traditional cable bundles to exclusive digital platforms has transformed the economics of media distribution while complicating the fan experience. Instead of purchasing access through a single channel, viewers now piece together coverage across a growing number of subscription services to watch the games they value. Contemporary antitrust law, anchored in the consumer welfare standard and administered through the Rule of Reason, typically evaluates competitive harm through discrete changes in price or output within defined markets. This Note contends that such metrics overlook the primary burden facing modern sports consumers: the aggregate financial and logistical strain imposed by structurally fragmented distribution systems. Using FuboTV Inc. et. al. v. Walt Disney Co. et. al., as a case study, it demonstrates how existing antitrust analysis can miss the cumulative effects of subscription stacking even where no individual firm raises prices above competitive levels. Rather than abandoning the consumer welfare framework, the Note proposes a refined application of the Rule of Reason that recognizes cumulative access costs and structural fragmentation as economically cognizable harms. In digital markets where access itself constitutes the core product, protecting competition must account for the total burden placed on consumers, not merely the preservation of multiple market actors.
Recommended Citation
Andrew Newman,
Balancing the Game: Rethinking Antitrust Law in the Modern Sports Broadcasting Landscape,
91 Brook. L. Rev.
1407
(2026).
Available at:
https://brooklynworks.brooklaw.edu/blr/vol91/iss4/7