In the United States, Sundays are for professional football. Saturdays are for college football. And Friday nights are for high school football. 

American football fans live by these rules. But what many sports fans don’t realize is that these rules are actually the law.

This Article discusses the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 (“Act”) and how it applies to the NFL today in light of the increasing internationalization of American football and the rise of streaming platforms.

Background

In 1961, as sports broadcasting began its ascent, leagues hit a wall. The NFL had entered into a contract granting CBS the sole and exclusive right to televise all NFL games for a term of two years, with certain limited exceptions. Prior to 1961, each team individually negotiated TV rights to its games. However, the NFL-CBS contract was a collective negotiation on behalf of all NFL teams, which the government argued violated the Sherman Antitrust Act. In United States v. National Football League, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania agreed, arguing that the teams had eliminated competition among themselves for the sale of TV rights to their games. The court’s final judgment therefore prohibited the execution and performance of the NFL-CBS contract.

Enter the U.S. Congress.

The Act

In response to the district court’s holding, Congress amended the Sherman Act with the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961, officially permitting joint broadcasting agreements such that professional sports leagues can pool their broadcasting rights and sell them collectively without violating federal antitrust laws. The reasoning was that in the broadcasting context, sports teams should be viewed as partners rather than business competitors. And so, the television network “package” was born. Today, it has grown into a worldwide multi-billion dollar industry. However, the Act made certain exceptions.

Most relevant to this article is the restriction on broadcasting NFL games that take place on Friday or Saturday. The act withdrew antitrust immunity for any professional football telecast, if a high school or college football game is being played within 75 miles of the applicable broadcasting station on Friday nights (after 6pm) and Saturdays. However, this restriction only runs each year from the second Friday in September until the second Saturday in December. So in 2025, the restriction will run from September 12th until December 12th.

As a direct result of the Act, Fridays became synonymous with high school football while Saturdays became dedicated to college football. In 1990, H.G. Bissinger published his book “Friday Night Lights”, which became a film and a TV series, incontrovertibly about high school football. Conversely, the movie “Any Given Sunday” is evidently about the NFL.

Nonetheless, a modern desire to work around these rules has resulted in an increasing number of exceptions.

Exceptions and Work-Arounds

Timing

The Act was very specific about timing. High school football games are typically a Friday evening event, so there is technically no competition if a professional game is held earlier in the day. In fact, the NFL has exhibited Black Friday games each of the past two seasons and will do so again this season when the Chicago Bears take on the Philadelphia Eagles on November, 28, 2025 on Prime Video. While these Black Friday games fall in the middle of the statutory restriction period, the games kick off in the middle of the afternoon (Eastern time), meaning that they are not exhibited during prime time, which is reserved for high school football.

Additionally, the NFL season usually starts the week after Labor Day while the Act is only effective starting in mid-September. This allows the NFL to broadcast Friday night games the first Friday in September, which it did last year and will do so again this season when the Kansas City Chiefs and Los Angeles Chargers square off. Additionally, the NFL regularly plays Saturday games in late December once the college football regular season ends.

Location

As important as when a game is played is where the game is played. Not only will this season’s second game take place on the first Friday of the year, it will also be played in Saõ Paolo, Brazil – the same location as last season’s first Friday game. Traditionally, the 75 mile rule has had the effect of applying the statute to the entire United States. Virtually every NFL team plays within 75 miles of a high school football team. But that was before the league went international.

As football grows worldwide, the league has held games in Mexico City, London, Frankfurt, Munich, Saõ Paolo, and now, Berlin, Dublin, Madrid, and Melbourne. Usually, these games take place on Sundays, but as the annual Brazil game occurs on a Friday, the league is able to take advantage of the schedule and location exception to the Act. Beyond a desire to expand the NFL’s fanbase abroad, leveraging location and time exceptions to the Act may explain why NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has committed to a 16-game international schedule per season within the next five years.

Technology

Finally, in the modern era, there is an open question as to whether streaming platforms are subject to the same law. After all, traditional network television was only beginning to gain traction when the Act was passed and the operative language of the Act is “sponsored telecasting of the games . . . on a television station” (emphasis added), which has been interpreted to include over-the-air broadcasts and cable and satellite broadcasts. Of course, in 1961, it would not have been possible for the same network to simultaneously broadcast a high school football and a college football game.

But today, technology makes it much easier. In fact, football fans can now simultaneously watch multiple games. Therefore, if challenged, streaming platforms may argue that the Act should only apply to traditional broadcast and not to exhibition over the internet because streaming platforms are not traditional broadcasters in that they do not use FCC-regulated airwaves or the same infrastructure.

On the other hand, some may argue that streaming platforms are functionally equivalent to traditional broadcasters and that the Act’s intent was to preserve attendance and interest in high school and college football games and that no matter how much our technology progresses, Friday nights are for high school football, Saturdays are for college football, and Sundays are for the NFL.

Conclusion

As a result of the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961, Friday night NFL games are rare. But today, they are on the rise. The league and streamers can take advantage of the exceptions and exclusions that the Act allows, including when and where games are played and how they are exhibited. But no matter what, as a result of one statute’s effect over 60 years, Friday Night Lights will always be a reference to high school football.