GREEN BAY (NBC 26) — A congressional committee is reviewing the Sports Broadcasting Act (SBA) of 1961, but Packers leaders say changes could be devastating to the future of the franchise.
In part, the act allows professional sports leagues to collectively negotiate their national television rights with broadcast networks like NBC, FOX, CBS and ABC.
Since it went into effect nearly 70 years ago, all national television money has been shared equally by all teams across the league.
Aaron Popkey, the Packers' director of public affairs, said the current model helps maintain competitive balance across the league.
"The (Sports Broadcasting Act) is what allows the Packers to be viable, competitive and successful," Popkey told NBC 26 on Friday. "Being able to share revenue allows the Packers, in the smallest market by far, to be competitive with other teams in the NFL.
"Fast forward to today, there would be no way the Packers could exist without that structure," Popkey added.
Last week, Popkey sent a letter to several of Wisconsin's federal lawmakers saying changes could pose an "existential threat" to the Packers.
Prior to the bill's passage in 1961, NFL teams negotiated their own television deals individually.
Popkey said he's not sure if that model would return, but did say the franchise believes the current model is better for small market teams like the Packers.
A passage from The Greatest Story in Sports, a book written by Packers historian Cliff Christl, highlights just how important the SBA was to the sustainability franchise in the 1960s.
Christl writes that while some "big-city" owners were initially resistant to the idea of a single-network television contract, Vince Lombardi and Steelers owner Dan Rooney helped commissioner Pete Rozelle convince owners of large-market teams to agree to sign the deal and share money equally among all teams.
"If Green Bay lost its television money, they wouldn't have a balanced league," Rozelle is quoted as saying in Christl's book. "It was an altruistic decision on their part."
Christl attributes hat quote from Rozelle to Michael MacCambridge's book, America's Game.
While a federal judge initially voided the television contract with CBS, congress later passed the measure which was later signed into law by President John. F. Kennedy.
At the time, Tex Schramm - the GM of the Cowboys and a former television executive - said the packaged contract would be the "sole difference between profit and loss" and without it "the small clubs would be out of business," according to Christl.
"It was Pete Rozelle and other clubs that convinced the owners to share their revenue knowing that that was going to provide the structure that teams could be competitive," Popkey said Friday. "And that's where the popularity of the NFL comes from."
The Senate Judicial Committee is re-evaluating the law, citing potential anti-trust issues.
"The current state of the sports broadcasting market has changed considerably since the 1960s," the committee said in a press release last year.
Committee leaders have requested to meet with the commissioners of all four major sports leagues.
