National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell is defying President Donald Trump over the league’s schedule — but Trump and some bipartisan bedfellows are actually on the right side in this case.

This is one of those cases where you have to be able to say that not everything is political — but also, everything is political. Goodell appears to be trying to stand his ground against the Florida AG’s assault on his league’s diversity programs. So that’s a good thing, if it holds, and definitely flies in the face of Trump’s anti-DEI crusade.

But not everything Trump says is wrong, and not everyone who goes against Trump is right. This week alone, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) — one of the Republicans who voted to convict Trump after Jan. 6 — and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) — who ran afoul of Trump on everything from spending fights to the Epstein files — found themselves on the receiving end of Trump’s revenge.

Cassidy may feel free to defy Trump for the remainder of his term, but he was complicit in approving the Mos Eisley Cantina of cabinet secretaries and other nominees, while Massie is definitely no ally to progressive causes.

So don’t get it twisted when I say I agree with Trump to a point on something.

Earlier this week, Goodell defended the league’s TV schedule to the hilt at a press conference during the NFL Spring Meetings in Orlando, Florida:

Well, we’re incredibly proud of our policies, and they’ve been incredibly effective, and– from a fan’s standpoint.

So I think our games are most available, any games by far from any league.

I think 87% plus are on free television, 100% are on in the local markets. So we’re very proud of that.

We will always look at potentially adjusting them, but I think we’ve done a great job with that, but we’ll continue to try to focus on how we can improve it if there’s an opportunity.

This comes not long after Trump ripped the league’s schedule in an interview on Sinclair’s Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson when he wasn’t complaining about the kickoff:

SHARYL ATKISSON: Your Justice Department is investigating the NFL for moving a lot viewers from free broadcast television to more expensive pay programming like Amazon Prime, Netflix, Peacock, and YouTube where the NFL makes more money.

Do you think this is price gouging on America’s favorite sport? Should the government do anything about it?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: It’s tough, it’s a tough. You’ve got people that love football, they’re great people, they don’t make enough money to go and pay this. It’s, it’ tough.

And they could be killing the Golden Goose…

…There’s something very sad when they take football away from many, many people, very sad. I don’t like it.

…I don’t like it. They’re making a lot of money. They could make a little bit less. They could let the people see.

You have people that live for Sunday. They live. They can’t think about anything else, and then all of a sudden they’re going to have to pay $1,000 a game. It’s crazy, so I’m not happy about it.

So while he’s got a pretty strong opinion on the matter, that’s not exactly an ironclad policy commitment.

The frustration is understandable. The NFL has steadily transformed watching football from a relatively straightforward broadcast experience into a scavenger hunt spread across Amazon Prime, Netflix, ESPN, Peacock, NFL Network and traditional cable packages.

According to Essentially Sports, major games this season — including Packers-Rams on Thanksgiving Eve, Broncos-Steelers on Black Friday and Packers-Bears on Christmas Day — will stream exclusively behind subscription paywalls, creating what the outlet described as an increasingly “confusing and expensive viewing experience” for fans.

That growing dependence on streamers may also be helping fuel another looming problem for fans: skyrocketing future rights costs.

As The Athletic reported earlier this year, the NFL has already begun maneuvering around its current media agreements while eyeing dramatically larger future payouts from broadcasters and streaming giants desperate to secure live sports inventory.

The concern for consumers is obvious. Paramount-Skydance has already committed staggering sums toward its planned acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, while Netflix has demonstrated it is more than willing to spend aggressively for premium live programming after emerging flush with cash from massive breakup fees and subscriber growth.

In other words: somebody eventually pays for all of this.

And oddly enough, Paramount-Skydance does not appear particularly interested in encouraging regulators to aggressively examine the NFL’s own antitrust position — possibly because too much attention to broader antitrust concerns surrounding media consolidation could create complications for its own merger ambitions.

Lobbying disclosures show Paramount-Skydance was not registered to lobby either the Department of Justice or Federal Trade Commission during either Q4 2025 or Q1 2026, despite the widespread concern over sports streaming that has grown exponentially for years.

Notably, Paramount’s chief legal officer is former Trump antitrust chief Makan Delrahim, who is not registered to lobby at all despite remaining deeply connected to Trumpworld media and legal circles.

Last month, the New York Times reported Delrahim attended a White House Correspondents Dinner afterparty alongside Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, whose wife Katie Miller is reportedly involved in a potential podcast acquisition deal tied to Paramount-Skydance.

That matters because the NFL’s enormous collective media negotiations only exist thanks to a special antitrust exemption granted under the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 — legislation written for an era dominated by free over-the-air television, not subscription streamers scattered across half a dozen apps.

That’s where the strange bedfellows come in, because lawmakers from both parties appear to be noticing.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee’s antitrust subcommittee, has already called for regulators to review the league’s “soaring streaming prices.”

Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) introduced the “For The Fans Act” last month, warning that Americans should not need “10 different subscriptions and a second mortgage to watch sports.”

It was Baldwin’s bill that Goodell was asked about by a reporter who noted that huge fan communities fall outside the local market but within the regional fandom.

The NFL has spent years telling Americans that a maze of expensive subscriptions and a spreadsheet to keep track of them is a normal way to follow a sport, but frustrated fans aren’t convinced. When even this administration can see the tide turning, it’s a safe bet you’re dropping the ball.

Watch above via NFL and Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.

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