and am in touch with people in the ball ticks pip think they're nervous and they should be nervous but i do think they feel that article 5 means something and i think nato deserves some credit for doing what it's done to beef up the security of neighbors of russia. but that said, we have to think not in the old-school terms of thousands of troops and tanks crossing the border. it's stirring up local populations along the russian -- estonian and russian latvian border with lithuania. that's where the problem can become. peter, you said latvia in particular is vulnerable because of the banking influence of russia and the russian money and chris walker is here, he knows latvia much better than i do. so i think there should be reason for concern but not for alarm. >> one of the great stories in the past year has been the real -- maybe not surprising but very disappointing reactions

from the governments in central and eastern europe. >> yeah. >> in particular the czech republic, slovakia, hungary. the defense minister of the czech republic recently -- and the president -- or sorry the prime minister of slovakia both said that stationing nato troops on inner territory would be akin -- or remind them of the warsaw pact's invasion of 1968. this is a remarkable thing to say. both of these countries are nato members. both of those men are old enough to remember what the actual warsaw pact invasion was like. you have hungary, which is a complete separate story. we could have a whole day's panel worth about that country. but these are -- who would have -- i think in general the american and foreign policy community we figure this part of the world was done. you know, they were liberated from communism. they have liberal democracies now. they're set, they're finished. let's move on to sexier topics in asia and the middle east pip think what the ukraine crisis has exposed is just how real shallow those assumptions were.

>> but i would like to emphasize the issue of propaganda. and actually, we have a lot of russian-speaking population in baltic states and riga considered the most pro-russian town in baltic states. so the russian propaganda is very, very successful. and we here have to be very careful actually and alarmed to that propaganda. look at what they are doing. recently i was in ukraine -- just a little story. i was in ukraine with vice president biden. and we were trying to -- to go with presidethe president to mad there was a lot of victims of people who died, and they were upset with poet shiancoe, he didn't do enough for them, so

they were just upset. so he laid flower and they start screaming. so biden decided not to go. it was very kind of simple story, happened, there's nothing to do with biden at all. and the people were there -- just the poor people who lost their loved ones. right? so first story coming from washington i see is from political. political put russia today and the story on their website and wrote an article and said why is president biden dodged mobs in -- angry mobs in ukraine? where did they get it from? did they at least research what really happened? spent five minutes checking the information? no. it's easy to take something from russia today or last week, put it on their website and we are

reading it and repeating, repeating the lies. i mean, for so -- i thought maybe 10 or 20 articles, similar articles around in western media. we have to be very, very careful what we are here putting on and not the -- >> peter, this is what you were addressing in your report. could you maybe distill for us, give us the "reader's digest" version, how wo do we on the one hand maintain our traditions of free speech, first amendment, while on the other hand needing to respond to these lies and disinformation or propaganda? there are many people who say r.t. should be shut down, that it's an fsb front, not a legitimate service, and they should be kicked out of the country. and the british government is maybe fining them for breaking the broadcast standards. how do we balance these concerns?

>> it's a very good question. let's say the british situation. see, the key idea is-in russian information war is something called reflexive control, which is very, very big in the 'sixty and '70s. and the big difference, what we think about information, we think about it, it's usually about making people like us. so we'll go to afghanistan and play some pop music and they'll be dancing and buying some t-shirts. wow, there will be democracy. it worked really well. the russian thing was a bit different. the idea behind effective control is that you get inside the other side's information processing system, intellectual system, and then you spin it from inside. so they say that the americans started this, most famously, building up star wars and stuff, the russians spent loads of money and what are you doing, and bankrupt, so the russians always say it's the americans, it's us. so is russia today actually a

reflexive control kind of operation? is the point of russia today to get the british to ban it? much more pr -- >> as victims. >> yeah, as victims. so r.t. launches and immediately they have posters going if we get taken off air -- >> good r.t. >> hasn't even started yet. almost a pushing-off comment saying, come on, come on, ban us, ban us. doing this bizarre dance if you look at the way you regulate them. like you have to be more imparable. r.t. are like, well, we're an alternative news site. so where is the alternative to your alternative? you're being very one-sided. this bizarre ssnit and each other, which the british are very aware of. in america this isn't possible because you have the first amendment and hallelujah, thank god for that. but it's sort of like the right to lie. >> we're on c-span. >> exactly.

so regulating the system from inside. this is much more about us than russia. russia is exploiting this. i'd like to see a transparency to international information, an internationally recognized rating system which would not rate propaganda, just disinformation and misinformation. r.t., maybe some american channels, get a one out of ten, while the bbc would get a seven out of ten. immediately we could start regulating ourselves a little bit, because again, what r.t. is doing now, everyone is going to start doing tomorrow. this is much more pernicious than sort of like, you know, sort of fox news doing -- being obsessed with something. >> right. >> even though there are similarities. >> yes. in the back right there. >> thanks very much. jay hallen. i'm not a russian expert but something i've always thought about is with regards to ukraine, i mean, it's been a tug

of war if you leave ukraine as is, it seems -- it will be a tug of war going into the future, putin will always have his tentacles in there. is there anything to the idea of a strategic concession? concede crimea and maybe some of the other eastern parts so that the electoral balance is now fully tipped toward the western parties so that, you know, is a smaller ukraine a more united ukraine, one that can be a more confident member of the west? is there anything to that idea or would that be, you know, the first pin falling and then the other countries? >> very good question. i'll leave the to david and miroslava. >> maybe you can calm down. the short answer is now. it would be appeasement, not concession. it wouldn't be a deal. putin would view it as a weakness, an opening and his appetite would only be whetted, not sated.

and so ukraine was a peaceful country before all this. ukraine was not a divided country. crimea wasn't looking to break-away from ukraine. crimea was part of ukraine since 1954. and putin wants to revisit all the international agreements and understandings, particularly in the post cold war period which opens up an enormous pandora's box. we shouldn't facilitate that. we should take the same approach toward crimea that we did toward the baltic states after they were absorbed by the soviet union where we never recognized their annexation and we should maintain that position and keep the sanctions in place until crimea returns to ukraine. the first sanctions were imposed in march of this year because of russia's annexation of ukraine. and until that's undone, i don't see any reason to lift those sap sanctions, i don't see any reason to recognize crimea as part of ukraine. you can't even pretend -- part of russia. you can't even pretend that the

referendum was serious. no one can organize a referendum in two weeks. and give than there were troops on the ground even if they weren't wearing identifying insignia, people are intimidated by that very kind of environment. and so it was a farce of a referendum. the west was absolutely right not to recognize it. what's also notable is no other country in the former soviet union has recognized it. so they're nervous, they're afraid, and if we conceded crimea all of those countries would be terrified as well. >> like kazakhstan. >> where putin recently said he didn't think it was a real state. >> he said that bulgaria doesn't have a -- cannot make their own decisions. so he would never stop, unfortunately. >> that said, when i was in ukraine, and i'm sure you can back me up on this, there are ukrainians who would agree with you, particularly in the west. >> yes. >> who say enough of this don

bass stuff, we don't want our sons dying for these people and we never really considered them ukrainians. that's a minority. i'm not trying to -- >> look, i think miroslava knows it much better than i, but i think the reason poroshenko's party came in second in the elections is more ukrainians think poroshenko has made too many concessions already to putin. i have some empathy for his position because i think the west isn't leaving him much choice. but i think he has been engaging with putin too much because putin isn't interested in the compromise. putin's goal in ukraine is destabilization. he wants to make ukraine ugly and unappealing to the west so that the west loses interest in ukraine. he wants to do that to all of his neighbors. you would think what a stupid idea to create instability along your borders. but instability to putin is much better than having moldova and georgia and ukraine move closer to europe, democratize,

liberalize, because that becomes a threat. >> i can not say anything better than that. >> oh, i bet you could. say it in ukrainian. >> oh, yeah. >> peter, do you have anything or should i go on to other -- >> no, go ahead. >> the lady right here in the second row. i think we have a microphone for you. just one moment. >> i'm with the lithuanian american community for many, many years. i'm on their public affairs council now. you're all preaching to the choir as far as i'm concerned. but i do want to ask -- we heard senator mccain's comments this morning where he talked about leadership and standing up to the russians and not buying into the argument of some that we've seen in this town that the russians will merely escalate and we can't win that escalation. our organization has been part of a coalition lobbying the

administration and congress to make sure that we get military assistance to ukraine. and the only credible argument they seem to be making out of the national security council, no one else in this government does it, only the people of the national security council. so do your own mathematics there, are that there isn't enough u.s. public support and yet the marshall funds study that came out recently in september shows 43% of americans believe that there should be military assistance to ukraine. now that's more than a plural ti. i realize that, you know, it hasn't gotten to 51%, but what would you say to those nsc staffers right now? >> well, first of all, i'm not even sure that that is the real reason why this administration doesn't want to give arms to ukraine. i think the reason why they don't want to give arms to ukraine is they don't want to anger moscow. and they still think perhaps it's provocative. >> it is. >> they view these little baltic

countries as nuisances in the way of a larger grand bargain to be made. i think that we've seen this throughout the administration's foreign policy with iran, with other adversarieadversaries, ba let's sweep all these other pesky concerns aside, whether it's human rights, whether it's our traditional allies that we can make a grand bargain with our adversaries. that's my read on this administration's -- >> i think there's a lot of things going on under cover. i had a chance to talk to nsc staffers on the trip to ukraine recently. and one thing they're trying to do, they're trying to -- i don't want to be their advocate, no way. i think ukraine should get much more than getting now and military support for sure. but there's a lot of -- first what they're trying to do to keep the coalition together, the european and united states coalition against russia, and it's not an easy task because

europeans have a lot of interest, financial interests in russia. and it's very, very difficult to keep them even to hold sanctions, not even anything further. so that first task that they have, the keep that coalition together, because russia is interested to divide and conquer. and they want division between europe and united states. we cannot -- we cannot let it happen. second rs if president obama is offering $p 00 billion to fight ebola and not offering anything to help ukraine, that means he doesn't recognize russia as a serious threat, and that's very unfortunate, what i see. i think russia is one of the first threats to europe and basically to the world.

they're supporting terrorism everywhere, starting from syria, ending in far right movement in europe. we have to take it seriously. it's so difficult to turn around and kind of plan and think, kind of changing all the time, but i don't think that there is enough understanding in washington what's really going on. >> i know i was ragging on our czech and slovak and hungarian friends earlier, but i think really a lot of this problem comes from the motto of our -- of then, which is the need for american leadership. if you're a small central eastern european country and you feel listless and you see no leadership from washington, no help for you, someone might say, all right, we have to make our deal with the guy to the east because we can't count on washington. i think that to some extent is driving a lot of these negative trends that you're seeing in the countries that we had assumed

after the cold war would be some of our strongest allies and supporters of the transatlantic relationship and haven't been because i think they've felt left out. yeah. >> go ahead. >> just one sentence about russians and propaganda. one of the goal of the propaganda is induce that feeling of betrailer. >> helplessness. >> helplessness. >> just two quick points. one is the push for providing lethal assistance to ukraine as you know is bipartisan. this is not a republican issue beating up the democratic white house. you have senator menendez, curran, levin -- >> is murphy -- >> i don't know about murphy, but the legislation passed in the senate foreign relations committee on september 17t 17th 18-0. nothing passes 18-0 these days. that's a sign of strong bipartisan support for providing ukrainians the means to defend themselves. second point is i think one of the biggest mistakes -- i

support the administration's sanctions approach, but i do think the public and repeated rejection of ukrainian requests for military assistance is an enormous mistake. it telegraphs to putin what u.s. limitations are. testimony phrase gratuitous clarity is a wonderful phrase. we are far too clear on what we won't do. >> the opposite of strategic ambiguity. >> exactly. i want putin to wonder that guy at 1600 pennsylvania is a little unpredictable, a little crazy. i don't know what he might do. >> exactly. >> and instead we go out of our way to say what we won't do and we essentially open the door to putin and let him walk in. that's a huge mistake. and you're absolutely right. our european alice, canadians who have been great on ukraine, are not going to get out in front of us on this issue. they need the united states to take a leadership role and we're not doing it. >> more questions.

>> this gentleman right here. >> the up with country that hasn't come up in conversation yet and the one that is probably the most firm against russia is poland. i just was wondering if you had comments on sort of the polish take on ukraine and share sort of feeling about dealing with russia overall. >> i think we got a pretty good ind case of the polish take from former foreign minister's sikorsky's comment was recently leaked that his country's alliance with the united states was worthless. obviously not something he's going to say publicly, but you talk to a lot of poles behind the scenes and they will express similar sentiments. >> sentiment is the same as ukraine -- as ukrainian. happy to point that they were able to go ahead so far

economically and being effective as a state and that ukraine has to rely on poland right now as a leader in european union for support. one thing it took, in europe now, he's leading the continue sewel -- consul and they're hopeful they would be on the side of ukraine. >> i was kidding about gaining my freedom after leaving. it's a wonderful organization. there was a report issued recently on how ten countries in the e.u. promote democracy beyond their borders, and poland came in second after sweden. i think poland actually deserves a lot of credit for what it has do done. and it's in a difficult position because of geography and it is sort of the exposed plane for nato. but i think for the most part the poles deserve a lot of credit.

i think the baltic state states deserve a lot of credit. i think they've been incredibly brave give than they have been targets and victims of gas cutoffs, food cutoffs, cyber attacks. >> cyber attacks. >> in 2007 in estonia. they're at the front line. and i wish more countries and the rest of europe would follow their lead. >> peter, anything? do we have time? do we have time for one more question in one more question. this gentleman right here. >> lieutenant colonel with the stimson center. i understand the informational warfare and the new front that's been opened there. the harsh reality is that you have a country that still has the largest buying strategic and tactual nuclear forces in the world. how do you feel, given the modernization that's going on within the strategic forces in russia, how do you feel that putin views his nuclear forces and how they will play out in the world in the mid to long

range? >> well, a few years ago you had the general who was the former chairman of their armed forces threatening to use nuclear weapons preemptively if nato continued to enlarge. the reaction in the city was, oh, we've heard that before, let's brush it off. remember in 2008 the night that barack obama won the u.s. election, then russian president dimitri med ve dech threatened to point missiles at leningrad in part because he thought this shows how poorly the kremlin understands the united states, that john mccain but going to win. he would haven't done that with barack obama if he thought he was going to win. and so the russians have become rather reckless, one, in talking about use of nuclear weapons, including there's been concern about deployments of some missile to crimea. they become incredibly reckless and dangerous with use of military aircraft buzzing nato

allies and e.u. member states and others flying along the mediterranean, coast of portugal, and they turn their transponders off, which greatly increases the risk that there's going to be a terrible accident where one of these planes is going to crash into a civilian airline just like russian forces and russian supportive forces shot down a malaysian airliner, which by the way none of us has mentioned during this 45 minutes. it's amazing how quickly people forget that 298 people were murdered by a russian missile. so the russian military is much better shape than it was in 2008. it struggled against georgia. it's struggled against ukraine. but because ukraine is not georgia, ukraine is a much bigger entity to take on, i think it's a mistake to continue as we have in the past to sweep these threats and sweep this talk under the rug and say, oh, that's russia being russia. i think it has to be taken much more seriously, particularly when putin says to poroshenko,

barroso, i could be in kiev, riga, or warsaw in two hours. >> let's divide ukraine in half. >> or the secret protocols with dividing europe. the response to the question about the baltics, that's what would make me nervous is putin's talk like that. again, we tend to say that's putin being putin. putin is a liar and denying the russian forces were in crimea, then he admitted he lie. but there are certain things we should pay serious attention to and attention of the people under him. it's a pretty -- if dempsey said that about russia, he'd be fired. and he should be fired. i'm not saying dempsey should be fired. don't get me wrong.

>> well, on that note, i think we have to go to coffee break. thank you all so much. this was excellent. we could have gone on much longer. [ applause ] back on capitol hill, we're covering a senate judiciary committee here today on c-span3 looking into sports blackouts and antitrust exemptions. the committee in a break for a series of votes on the senate floor. the senate is in the last vote of that series, so they should be wrapping things up there. and we expect this hearing to resume shortly. the federal communications commission earlier this year repealed its sports blackout rules which prohibited cable and satellite operators from airing any sports event that had been blacked out on a local broadcast station. witnesses at today's hearing include the fcc's media bureau chief and attorney for the nfl and the leaders of the group's

sports fan coalition and the national consumers league. again, we expect the hearing to resume shortly. live coverage here on c-span3. and later, assuming that this hearing wraps up in time, we plan to bring you outgoing defense secretary chuck hagel. he'll provide an update today on his department's effort ts, preventing and responding to sexual assaults. that's at 1:30 eastern time. and then later we plan to bring you an event with labor secretary tom perez on americans' wages and the strengthening of the economy. that's live at 2:00 eastern again planning live coverage here on c-span3. we will resume our live coverage of this hearing shortly as well.

we're back in stegs. i'll recognize the senator for an opening statement, and then we'll proceed to the second panel of witnesses. >> thank you, mr. chairman. first of all, i want to start by thanking you, senator blumenthal and senator mccain, for bringing this important matter to the attention of the committee. i think you've raised an important question. no one really likes sports blackouts, at least of all the

public, yet as we all know congress has permitted professional sports leagues to operate outside of our antitrust laws in order to have them. we've done so on the theory that without blackouts fans might stay home and watch the game on tv. well, the ticket sales necessary to sum port the team might dwindle as a result. that economic assumption has now been called into question. the proponents of the bill argue that there's no evidence to support it. fans, they say, will attend games if the ticket price is right regardless of whether they could also watch the game at home as an alternative. at the moment, however, i'm not yet prepared to support the fans' act without additional study on my part. i am particularly concerned that the bill might unsettle some legitimate contractual expectations the sports leagues have bargained for with broadcasters without an appropriate phaseout period.

i'd also like to take a closer look at the economic evidence on both sides of this issue. but i agree wa that the issue certainly merits the attention of congress. professional sports leagues have asked for and have received exemptions from the competition laws that most other american businesses are required to comply with. those antitrust laws are an important and effective tool for ensuring free markets and protecting low consumer prices. as ranking member of our antitrust subcommittee i take a green interest in ensuring that our competition laws are functioning well and having their desired effect of protecting competition. for that reason, i'm certainly open to examining in the future whether the antitrust exemptions enjoyed by professional sports leagues in their current forms rest on sound justifications and, if not, how congress might act to modify those exemptions. thank you very much, mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator lee.

i'm going to ask the next panel to please come forward and take your seats. and actually before you take your seats, why don't i swear you in, which, as you know, is the custom of this committee. do you affirm that the testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you god? >> all: i do. >> thank you. by way of introduction, let me give a brief bio of each of the witnesses today. william lake is the chief of the media bureau at the federal communications commission. he has served as the dtv transition coordinator for the fcc, counsel to the administrator at the environmental protection agency, and principal deputy legal adviser at the u.s. department of state. he was also a partner at wilner,

cutler, pinkering, hale, and door. david goodfriend is the founder and chairman of the sports fan coalition, the largest multiissue public policy organization for fans. he's current through president of goodfriend government affair, and he served as deputy staff secretary to president clinton and media legal adviser to commissioner susan ness at the fcc. he also previously served as vice president of law and public policy at dish network. sally greenberg is the executive director of the national consumers league. she testified numerous times before congress on consumer protection issues from 2001 to 2007. she worked at the consumers union. she served for many years on the board of directors at the alliance for justice and h.a.l.t., an organization that focuses on protection of consumer rights in their interaction with lawyers and the legal system.

gerald walden is a partner at cubington burling representing a range of technology companies online, social and media company, and communications clients before the fcc, the ftc and congress. before joining covington, jerry served as senior counsel on the house subcommittee on telecommunications and worked on the committee staff for over ten years. thank you all for being here today. let's begin with mr. lake. >> good morning, senator blumenthal and senator lee. i'm bill lake, chief of the media bureau at the federal communications commission. i'm pleased to appear before you today to discuss the recent fcc action to eliminate our sports blackout rules. a built of history may provide useful context for our action. our sports blackout rules specifically prohibited cable and satellite operators from airing any sports event that had

been blacked out on a local broadcast tv station pursuant to a private blackout policy adopted by a sports league. the commission adopted a sports blackout rule for cable in 1975, finding that the rule was necessary to ensure that cable importation of distant signals would not reduce ticket sales and thus lead sports leagues to refuse to sell the rights to their events to distant stations which could, in turn, reduce the availability of sports programming to tv viewers, which was the principal concern of the commission. we later adopted similar rules for satellite carriers and open video systems. as you know, the commission voted unanimously to eliminate these sports blackout rules on september 30th this year, finding that they were unnecessary and outdated today. the repeal of the rules took effect on november 24. the commission's action followed

an open and transparent public process that began in 2011 when the sports fan coalition filed a petition for rule making with the commission. after careful review of the comments we received in the proceeding, the commission found that significant changes in the sports industry since the rules were adopted had eliminated the justification for the rules. first, for the nfl, the only league for which the commission's sports blackout rules continued to be relevant, ticket sales are no longer the primary source of revenue. the massive popularity of pro football means that the primary source of income for the nfl has shifted to television. with tv revenues now the nfl's main source of revenue approaching $6 billion this year, total nfl revenues reportedly exceeded $10 billion in 2013.

second, the increased popularity of nfl games has brought fans to the stadiums in numbers that make blackouts exceedingly rare. in 1975 almost 60% of nfl games were blacked out because they failed to sell out. last year only two of 256 regular-season nfl games, less than 1%, were blacked out, and no games have been blacked out so far this year. moreover, in recent years, blackouts have affected only a few nfl markets such as buffalo, cincinnati, and san diego. finally, the commission determined that the impact on consumers of eliminating its sports blackout rules would be minimal. the nfl's existing contracts with the broadcast networks extend through 2022, keeping games on over the air stations through at least that time

frame. beyond that, the commission found it is highly unlikely that the nfl would find it more profitable to move its games from over the air stations to pay tv in the absence of the sports blackout rules. in conclusion, i would like to note that i am limiting my testimony to the commission's decision and its rationale. elimination of our rules does not prevent the sports leagues from continuing to have a sports blackout policy, and the commission does not take a position on whether congress should eliminate or modify existing antitrust exemptions that allow leagues to have such blackout policies in the first place. again, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. i will be happy to take your questions. >> thank you, mr. lake. mr. goodfriend. >> thank you, senator. thank you, senator blumenthal, senator lee, and senator klobucar, members of the committee. we appreciate very much the fact

that you've invited sports fan kos ligs to testify. my name is david goodfriend and i'm the founder and chairman of sports fan to co-ligs, the largest fan advocacy organization in the public policy arena. founded in 2009 we have tens of thousands of members across the usa and are led by a bipartisan, diverse, and seasoned board of directors. the government should not subsidize or support anti-fan activities by professional sports leagues, period. when a sports league receives a public benefit, the fans should get a fair return or the subsidy should go away. that is why sports fans coalition is proud to have led the successful effort to end the fcc's sports blackout rule. the nfl's blackout policy prohibits a local broadcaster from televising a game when tickets don't sell out 72 hours before kickoff. the fcc rules you just heard bolster that anti-fan policy by requiring paid tv companies likewise to impose such blackouts. sports fans coalition along with

our friend from national consumer lesion and others -- our efforts culminated in a unanimous 5-0 vote this past september 30th to end the 40-year-old anti-fan sports blackout rule. and we could haven't done it, senator blumenthal, without support from you and senator mccain and others, so thank you for that. that was a great moment for fans, but the problem is the nfl's policy remains in place. the nfl should end its local blackout policy once and for all effective immediately. fans hate local blackouts, and you know this. but just listen to two fan who is told the fcc how they feel. dennis steinmiller from new york said, "i'm a disabled vietnam vet. i also suffer from posttraumatic stress disorder. i'm unable to attend the bills games because of my disabilities. watching the bills on tv is one thing i look forward to every year as well as to help me with my ptsd. please put all the games on tv

for me and the other who is gave much of ourselves for our country." or listen to mary bash from florida, who said, "for people like me who are disabled, this blackout rule is discrimination against people with disabilities. i can't physically attend a live i'm stuck at my home with only the television to bring me to sports or anything else that i enjoy watching. the nfl blackout policy from the '70s does not reflect the times of today. technology has changed. the nfl's market has changed. where do they think all that money comes from? it is us, the consumer, who buys the products from their advertisers. it is us, the taxpayer, who built most of those arenas. it's us, the american citizen, who continues to foot the bill." real fans, real comments submitted to the fcc. but the fans aren't alone. we saw economists from stanford, michigan, and other institutions submit detailed declarations to the fcc explaining why the nfl's blackout policy doesn't even

serve its stated purpose of getting more fans in seats. listen to other professional sports leagues. we submitted data, depositions from the commissioner of baseball, the commissioner of hockey who said under oath we got rid of our blackout policy because it doesn't work. and the fcc agreed with all this when they got rid of their own sports blackout rule. now the nfl should do the right thing. it should listen to fans, economists, other leagues, the commissioners of the fcc, the members of congress, and end its local blackout policy. failing that, congress should pass the fans act. the antitrust statutes currently shield leagues from liability when imposing local blackouts. it would eliminate the get-out-of-jail-free card. the sports fan coalition also believes fans shouldn't be used as pawns during contractual disputes between big companies. the fans act would take care of that too. finally, i'd like to make clear that sports fans coalition fully supports putting as many games

as possible on free over the air broadcast tv. the migration of sports off broadcast tv has created problems. just look at los angeles where time warner cable took over the television rights of the l.a. dodgers, and what happened? 70% of l.a. fans could not watch their dodgers play in a great season because they didn't have time warner cable. so when major league baseball and the l.a. dodgers have received so much public subsidization, fans should have a better access to those games and putting them on broadcast is one way to do that. perhaps a revised fans act could require all sports leagues to maintain just a certain amount of games on free over the air tv so that fans have access to at least some games. thank you, and i look forward to answer anything questions. >> thank you very much, mr. goodfriend. miss green berg. >> yes. good morning, senator blumenthal, senators lee, klobucar, and franken. my organization, the national consumers league, was founded in 1899. we are the nation's pioneering

consumer organization and our nonprofit mission is to advocate on behalf of consumers in the united states and abroad. we very much appreciate you inviting the consumer point of view for this very important bill, s-1721. i'm delighted to see my fellow minnesotans here because i grew up going to minnesota vikings games and minnesota twins game. i'm an avid fan. i love watching professional sports. but like me, millions of americans define themselves in part by the teams they support. however, the professional sports leagues are also multibillion-dollar businesses that benefit from a multitude of public subsidies. these take the form of exemptions from federal antitrust laws, tax breaks, and public funding for stadiums, infrastructure sum port for municipalities and blackout policies that benefit the leagues and their broadcast partners. as the leagues enjoy huge profit, taxpayers are right to question what they receive in

return for these public benefits. for example, a harvard university study recently calculated that 70% of capital costs of national football league stadiums have been provided by taxpayers, whether they are sports fans or not. a 2012 bloomberg study estimated the tax exemptions on interest paid by municipal bond issued for sports facilities cost the u.s. treasury $146 million a year. and over the life of the $17 billion of exempt debt issued to build stadiums since 1986, taxpayer subsidies to bondholders would total $4 billion. lavish public subsidies for stadiums aren't the only way that taxpayers subsidize professional sports. the rising cost of acquiring sports programming is also a significant driver of rising cable bills, which have gone up more than three times the rate of inflation since 1998 due to the wye spread practice of channel bundling, the increasing costs of sports programming are

passed along to all cable and satellite subscribers regardless of whether they actually watch sports. sports programming costs are also a major driver of the fights between broadcasters and cable television providers over retransmission fees that have contributed to the increasing number of programming blackouts. in return for the government largess lavish on sports leagues, consumers are right to be outraged when essential services are cut to subsidize unaffordable tickets at publicly funded stadiums. cable and shiite subscribers, fans and nonfans alike, are angry that their bills go up due to ever-higher sports programming costs when the games even make it on air. the game is clearly rigged in favor of the professional sports leagues. taxpayers are getting the short end of the stick. so it is indeed time for congress to step up and begin to level the playing field. that's why nc slshgs proud to support the fans act. the bill would benefit consumers

in a number of ways, by reining in cable rate hikes, reducing incentives to blackout games, and giving consumers access to online game broadcasts. to elaborate, the bill commissions require that they not black out games as a result of contractual disputes with cable and satellite companies. ncl believes consumers should not be used as pawns in tis puts over retransmission fees, thus the bill helps to reduce the insensitive to use blackouts as a negotiating tactic and promises to reduce the frequency of these programming interruptions. second, the bill eliminates the antitrust exemption for local sports blackouts in the event the games do not sell out through tickets np will benefit millions of fans in smaller markets such as buffalo, many of which have larger stadiums but smaller populations and thus are less likely to sell 85% of their

seats. and third, the bill benefits consumers living in teams overlapping broadcast territories by conditioning the league's antitrust exemptions on the provision of alternative platforms like the internet. this would particularly help major league baseball fan who is live in states like arkansas, connecticut, nevada, oklahoma, that are overlapped by separate clubs in their home television territories and thus subject to local blackouts. finally, the bill corrects a historical anomaly by bringing major league baseball under the auspices of the clayton antitrust act in the same way as the nfl, nba, and nhl are currently treated. in doing so, the statutory conditions placed on existing antitrust exemptions by this bill would also apply to mlb. in conclusion, i'd like to reiterate our strong belief that the fans act addresses some of the unfair and unbalanced subsidies and preferential policies like antitrust exemptions that professional sports leagues enjoy at the expense of taxpayers and sports

fans alike. thank you very much. >> thank you very much, miss greenberg. mr. walgren. >> good morning, senators. members of the committee. my name is gerry wauld ren and i'm here in my christmas ti as outside counsel to the national football league on television-related matters. i appreciate the opportunity to discuss the nfl's commitment alone among the professional sports leagues in ep suring that all of its games are available across the country via free over the air television. for more than five decades the sports broadcasting act has been the key component in this strategy, enabling the nfl, major league baseball, the nba, and the nhl to put their games on broadcast television. in the nfl's case, the league has agreements to put all 256 regular-season games and all playoff games on free tv. that is a claim that no other sports league can make about all its playoff games, let alone all

its regular season games. quite simply, the sports broadcasting act is working to benefit fans in the public interest. for this reason, the fans act, which attempts to dictate business decisions, would ultimately be harmful to fans. for continue tech, the nfl strategy serves three main goals. first, because nfl teams generally play once each week, the league tries to make each game a special event and obtain the widest possible audience for those games. second, the league wants to encourage strong fan support in each local market. and third, the broadcast television agreements generate substantial revenues that are shared equally by the 32 nfl clubs, thus clubs in buffalo, green bay, or minneapolis receive the same amount from tv contracts as teams in the new york city and chicago media markets. to month pro-mote these goals the nfl has long maintained the blackout policy, which is incorporated into the league's

contracts with the broadcast networks. the hallmarks of informal. in games are full stadiums, excited crowds, and competitive games. soldout games improve the experience both for fans in the stadium and for those watching on television. increased attendance at games also helps to support local jobs, businesses, and taxes. and the league's business judgment is that it serves these objectives well. while some may disagree with the league's television policy, strong television ratings matched with high attendance demonstrate that the policy is working. the debate about blackouts of nfl games should be seen in context. nfl game blackouts are at an all-time low. last season only two games were blacked out across the league. this season there have been no blackouts. so over the past season and two-third, with almost 450 nfl games played, there have been

just two blackouts. this reduction reflects adjustments in the nfl's blackout policy that the league has made over the years to promote both game attendance and viewership. the sports broadcasting act encouraging broad-based game viewership. congress passed a law in 1961 to enable league agreements with broadcast networks and a sharing of revenues. under the fba, the nfl has created the most pro consumer television plan in sports today. the nfl has maintained its commitment to broadcast television, even extending its contracts to 2022 with its broadcast partners and trends by the other sports leagues off of free tv and towards pay television. the fans act proposes changes to the sba that would ultimately harm fans by creating

uncertainty around the future of sports on free television. a possible result would be to migrate popular sports programming from free broadcast television to pay tv. this committee has cautioned against such a move. the act propose untenable commissions on the trust provisions. the bill would deny a sports league the anti-trust exemption if third parties such as a television station or cable or satellite company have a contract dispute. no business can plan its operation under laws that could change at a moment's notice due entirely to the actions of third parties. in conclusion, nfl television policies made pop by the sba bring fans across the country a wide range of outstanding television content each week. the nfl and the other sports

league's practice of tell advising games and these policies should not be allowed. i'll take questions. >> thank you. i have some questions that i'm going to pose to you and then yield to my colleagues. i particularly am grateful to the head of the judiciary committee for being here today. you mentioned the uncertainty of fans. the reason for the uncertainty right now is the potential deprivation they suffer from blackouts. there may have been few this year but the potential for blackouts is what creates their apprehension that they may be deprived of access to these games.

i wonder whether you have additional evidence that was not presented to the fcc that you have to present to this committee or whether it's your contention that the fcc failed to consider the evidence that you presented in reaching its conclusion. >> senator, i have two comments. one, it was mentioned that the sports economists provided a study. dr. hellsinger said that an important reason why the nfl keeps games on broadcast television is because it's able to control its product. there was conflicting evidence before the fcc. i respect what mr. lake said that the fcc made one conclusion. the nfl's business judgment is that this is very important, but i think it misses sort of a larger point. senator, with respect to your constituents, they have seen every giants game this year, last year, the year before, the year before that, all the way

back to the early 1990s. if you look at the knicks games, they have to pay $80 a month to get their knicks games, their rangers games and to get almost all their yankees games. but they have seen every one of their giants games and i dare say every one of the jets games going back to that same time frame. i recognize that there are blackouts of nfl games, they are few and far between. but the nfl's commitment to broadcast television stands out among the other sports leagues. >> but the threat continues to exist in connecticut and around the country that they will be deprived of access to those games, and if the reality is that they are seeing the games anyway, why continue with the threat of blacking them out? it seems to me that your contention is that the blackout policy is essential to your business policy. in fact, it's the anti-trust exemption that's essential to your business policy.

without the anti-trust exemption, you wouldn't be able to negotiate the enormously lucrative broadcast agreements that you have and the revenue sharing pacts that you enjoy, and as a condition for receiving that very public and unique benefit, why not eliminate the threat to connecticut consumers and others around the country, fans across the united states, that simply because of a failure beyond their control of big business interests to reach an agreement, they may be deprived of access. >> i recognize that the sports broadcasting act gave an exemption to all the sports leagues and the nfl has used that exemption very responsibly by putting overwhelmly its games on television. to be clear, major league baseball testified last year before the senate judiciary committee, the only reason why

the world series is on fox television is because of the sports broadcasting act. it ensures that broadcasters -- and i would say if you look at the nfl in comparison to the other leagues, i think the league as used its anti-trust exemption very responsibility blee by putting so many of its games, all of its regular season games and all of its playoff games on free television. i acknowledge that last year there were two, this year none so far, that they are few and far in between, but the overwhelming number of games are on television and we think that's a responsible use of the sba provision. >> and the overwhelming number of games also are sold out in the stadiums, are they not? >> yes, that's correct. >> so why the blackout policy? >> we think over the long term it has served to promote that benefit. it's easy to remember that in the late 1990s, 25% of games actually were still being blocked out. >> in fact, aren't there other actions that the teams regularly

take during the 2012 system season, the miami dolphins bought tickets to prevent a blackout for seven of its eight home games, the jacksonville jaguars have covered approximately 10,000 seats at ever bank field with tarp since 2005, reducing their stadium capacity from 76,000 to 67,000. the teams regularly take action to fill their stadium, giving away tickets, selling them for less than face value, so as to avoid blackouts. why not eliminate the blackouts? >> i think that is profane. i think it's evidence that the clubs actually understand. the nfl doesn't want blackouts. the clubs don't want blackouts. senator lee and grassley both made that point in their opening statements. no one likes blackouts and that includes the nfl. so i think the examples that you have shown are clubs trying to

respond and the league has adjusted its policy to be more responsive. we think over the long term it has served and it's in the business judgment of the league that has served it, but as that shows, clubs take extraordinary examples to avoid them. >> i'm going to continue this conversation with you and the other witnesses but now turn to senator kroeb achar. >> thank you. i thought i'd start with you. the blackout rule was put in place in 1961, is that right? >> the sports broadcasting act was adopted in 1961. the fcc's rule was put in place in 1975. >> most of the money made by sports tickets came from ticket sales, but today nfl games are consistently among the most popular television and programs, certainly in my state where we're proud of the vikings and

with that comes a significant increase in revenue. cost of tickets has significantly increased. it's a big expense. do sports teams need blackout rules the same way they did half a century ago? if not, why do we have the same rule? >> no question that those facts are all right. this is in the record. it may surprise people that as much as a quarter of the revenue of the nfl still comes from ticket sales. ticket sales still sort of remain important. the nfl has a balance. they want to have popular games on television and they want to have a stadium that's full. you can imagine the scenario in which the other sports, they only play 162 games or 82 games, so every game as not a special event. in the nfl, they work hard to make every game a special event, so they try to balance that maximizing the full stadium capacity with the engaging of the fans on television. it's a balance and they have, frankly, adjusted that balance.

we think it encourages fan attendance and fan engagement over television. >> the fcc voted to repeal blackout rules which prevented cable and satellite operators from airing sports events blacked out on a local station. is there anything preventing the nfl and other sports leagues from negotiating blackout rules directly with cable and satellite operators now? >> what prompted the commission's action was the change in the sports industry since 1975 when we adopted our rule, principally the two facts that the senator has noted. in 1975 the principle source of revenue for the nfl was ticket sales, and over 60% of the games failed to sell out. now those facts are both reversed. tv revenue is the principle source of revenue for the nfl, and most games are sold out. what the commission concluded

was that there was very little risk that elimination of the fcc's rule would lead the nfl to move its games from broadcast television to pay tv. the objective of our rule from the outset was not to maximize the revenues of the sports leagues or of the broadcasters, but to try to protect the right of viewers to see games. at the time the rule was adopted, it was thought that the rule would help to keep games on broadcast tv by eliminating the risk that if a cable operator, for example, reported a station, that might lead the leagues to fail to sell the games to that distant station, and more viewers would lose the right to see the games. we concluded because of the changes in the industry, that risk no longer existed and therefore the rule was outdated. i should note that to your last question, the commission's action simply eliminates the

support for the private blackout policies that was previously in the commission's rules. that action does not prevent the leagues from continuing to implement their blackout policies as a private matter without fcc support. although, as i say today, blackouts are increasingly uncommon, the risk of blackouts continues. >> thank you. does anyone want to add anything to that? any other witnesses? >> thank you, senator. i think this discussion would be helped by understanding how we got the law in the first place. we're talking a lot about the anti-trust exemption as though it's always been there. let's talk about how we got here. in 1953, the united states department of justice anti-trust division succeeded in litigation with the nfl on anti-trust.

are you commenting on the packers? >> we are commenting. we just noticed it. it might not have been your smartest move given that half of the senators here are from minnesota. >> i realized that as i started talking. but we gave you brett favre. >> we're not at all distracted, are we? >> i was just thinking of senators finegold and cole. they enjoyed that. >> but we are here now. continue answering. >> i love the color purple. >> all right. >> 1953 u.s. versus nfl, the department of justice succeeded in winning litigation against the nfl for violating anti-trust laws. why? there were four things. number one, the league restricted the broadcast of games locally during a home game. number two, the league restricted the broadcast of an

away game in the home market. number three, same restrictions with respect to radio, and number four, a kind of blanket power given to the nfl commissioner to restrict broadcast all over. t three of those four violate anti-trust laws. one, the restriction of broadcasting games locally during a home game, the judge allowed to stand. that was 1953. in 1960, a new football league, the american football league, came along and did a deal with abc television network, whereby it pulled all the teams' broadcast rights and did one nationwide deal, so the nfl tried to do the same thing. it enter the same type of deal with cbs. no, said the court. that violates our 1953 order. what did the nfl do? it came right here to this committee, the united states congress, and it said, we need your help. how can it be fair that the afl

gets to pool its broadcast rights but we don't, that's not fair. and congress agreed. the sports broadcasting act of 1961 was expressly designed to overturn the 1953 eastern district of pennsylvania decision, while at the same time preserving that court's decision to allow local blackouts. that's how we got here. it was to overturn a case brought by the united states department of justice during the eisenhower administration. what does that mean for today's discussion? the court in 1953 and congress in 1961 both premised their decision on the importance of local ticket sales, the importance of maintaining the economics of the league. that was over a half century ago. it's perfectly legitimate for this committee to revisit the statute from 1961 and ask, do the same economic principles apply today? question at sports fans

coalition think they don't. any time the government gifts a league to a sports league, it's legitimate to ask, does the gift still make sense? it is after all a gift from the american people to a private, multi-billion dollar organization to get an anti-trust exemption for your type of business practice. >> thank you very much. my time is expired. >> senator franken. >> the threat of blackouts during retransition contract disputes is especially concerning to me because that could potentially affect fans of any major sports league. such contract negotiations seem to be growing increasingly contentious each year. last year, for example, negotiations between time warner, cable and cbs led to a

month-long blackout of programming that affected millions of consumers. as you know, comcast proposed the acquisition of time warner cable as currently being reviewed by the fcc and the department of justice. it's a deal that would unite the two largest cable operators in the country and, in my view as i've made very public, it should be rejected. i think it's simply a bad deal for consumers. i don't believe it would improve service or choice, and i believe it will result in higher prices. a combined comcast time warner cable company would exert particular power in the sports programming market. you've noticed that both companies have long track records of trying to prevent individuals who don't subscribe to cable from viewing games. can you explain what that means and tell us what you think the

implications of the proposed acquisition deal would be for sports fans. >> thank you, senator franken. let me note that sports fans coalition is on record opposing the comcast time warner cable merger and filed a petition to deny the fcc to that effect. your question regarding the effect on sports, my friend from covington mentioned the economist who opposed us in the blackout proceeding, mr. singer also authored a paper that we cited extensively in your pleading that said when a cable company owns a regional sports network, the tendency is for fans who don't subscribe to that cable company to not be able to see the game. that's the trend. as opposed to let's say on independent regional sports network that's carried more widely on other providers. mr. singer and his colleagues went on to conclude that the bigger the local cable company, the worse the problem gets.

and that actually just makes sense intuitively. if i'm going to give up revenue by not sharing my sports with you, the smaller you are, the bigger i am, the less of a loss it is to me. so that was the conclusion of singer etal. in the context of the proposed mirj merger, take a market like los angeles. los angeles has time warner cable and as i mentioned time warner cable owns a regional sports network. the merged entity would acquire ruffle a quarter million new subscribers from charter. what does that mean? the local cable company is getting bigger. as a result, the trend we already see today when time warner cable owns dodgers games and won't see to it to those games are seen by everybody, it's going to get worse. that's why sports fans coalition has chosen to oppose the merger. >> thank you. i'm going to get on a little bit

different subject. m we spoke about the sports leagues including the nfl enjoy. as a country we provide such enthusiastic sports for professional competitive teams at least in part because we recognize all the ways in which they can enrich our culture. yet, we have a team in the nfl that continues to call themselves by an offensive name, a racial slur. the use of the name is hurtful and insulting to so many people in our country, including in my home state of minnesota, where we have a large and vibrant native american community. i've heard from tribal leadership in my state who understandably find this name

offense and harmful, as do i. a simple step would be for the nfl to address the need for a name change. what is the league considering doing at this time? >> senator, i recognize the importance of your question. i am not in a position to answer it. i advise the league on television matters but i will consult with them and get back to you with an answer. >> i would appreciate that. thank you. mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator franken. just to continue with some of what we were discussing and i think mr. lake addressed part of this issue. mr. waldron, i guess it's your contention that the fcc failed to consider certain evidence and therefore reached the wrong conclusion by a 5-0 vote? >> sure. i'm not -- it's an assessment of uncertainties and mr. lake cannot prove that he's right

anymore that i can prove that mr. lake is wrong when he said the fcc's prediction was changing the sports blackout rule will have no effect on what the nfl does with respect to it. their judgment in looking at the evidence and looking at the sports economist study and the dr. singer study, they said, no, that was their judgment looking at the evidence. the nfl has been at this for 50 years. it actually wants to maximize the number of people in the stadiums. >> things have changed over that 50 years. >> i understand that, and they watch this every week. the nfl watches this every week. >> isn't the present policy in effect to the disadvantage of certain cities over others, certain fans over others. for example, the ralph wilson stadium in buffalo represents

28% of the population in this city, that stadium can hold 28% of the population compared to the capacity of soldier field in chicago which represents 2% of the population of that city, the stadiums in the new york area probably even a smaller percent which may be the reason that they are regularly filled. but the threat is there for all fans -- new york, connecticut. maybe it falls more heavily on buffalo, cincinnati, san diego, tampa bay, where economic recession, population trends may have made the markets less robust. isn't is there a discriminatory aspect here and as as far as it frankly hits the elderly, disabled, and folks who can't attend? >> two parts of that answer. first is i think the league has

recognized the different stadiums and different clubs are in different situations which is why it has adopted and adjusted its policy and adopted more flexibility and the flexibility that was adopted in 2011 or 2012, frankly, it has benefitted the very clubs that you mentioned, tampa bay and cincinnati and san diego. that's one of the reasons we have not seen that. to the point about the earlderl and we've all seen the studies -- >> if i may and i'll let you finish on the elderly and disabled and people of modest means who may not be able to afford tickets right now. if you're worried about filling the stadium, why not just lower the ticket price? that's the way the market normally works. you have the immense benefit of an exemption from normal market forces in the anti-trust exemption. why be greedy about it? the anti-trust exemption are the keys to the kingdom. they are the gold mine for you. it seems to me you've taken --

you continue to take a step too far. isn't it in your own enlightened self-interest to eliminate the blackout legislation? >> all the sports leagues enjoy that. congress passed it to benefit the public by putting sports on television. that was the judgment when congress passed it in 1961. it has been a benefit to the league. i don't want to suggest otherwise. we recognize that. but it's also been a benefit to the public in that regard. the dr. singer study that was cited earlier, he actually found that it actually does have a downward pressure on prices for the very reasons that you cite which is if you want to put people in the seats you're going to lower your prices and you actually have an incentive. because of the blackout policy, clubs have that intensive. but i don't want to lose sight of your very important comment about the elderly and latinos. many of those same people can't afford cable, yet to watch

everieevery sabres game they're going to have to pay $80 to $100 a month. they certainly watch all of their away games. every buffalo bills away game is on free over their television in buffalo. so we think that the league actually has used its benefits under the sba responsibly and to benefit the public. >> i'm going to ask some of the other witnesses to respond to the points that you have made very well. mr. lake, in essence i think you've heard mr. waldron say that the fcc could and would have adopted a conclusion. >> we held a proceeding in which we received extensive comments from a wide variety of parties including conflicting presentations and the conclusion

of the five unanimous commissioners was that based on that record, elimination of our sports blackout rule would not be likely to lead the league to move their games off of over the air television and onto pay tv. the commission noted that the contracts today extend through 2022, so that ensures that they will remain on over the air television at least within that period. >> so the fcc in essence, to put it from the fans' perspective, found no uncertainty as to what would happen? >> they certainly concluded that the very likely result is that this would not take games off of over the air television. >> mr. goodfriend, do you agree with that conclusion and particularly as it affects the smaller cities and fans in those cities and the threat to fans in the larger cities as well? >> senator, you'll note from our prior conversation i am wearing a green bay packers tie so i care about small market teams

very much. i think it's a little of a red herring to argue that all this is made possible solely by the united states congress in granting the anti-trust exemption. the nfl is not running a charity. they are a highly profitable multi-billion dollar organization. they put their games on television because that's where the money is. they put their games on broadcast because that's where the audience is. the day that pepsi and budweiser and gm stop paying top dollar for top ratings on broadcast, we'll see a change. until that day comes, the nfl's maximizing its revenues as any rationale business actor would. professor rod ford at the university of michigan, in the submission he made that the fcc pointed out that even under the most exotic assumptions, the threat of a local blackout might put a few thousand more people in seats on any given sunday.

contrast that with the loss of revenues from taking a game off broadcast, it would be in the millions, perhaps tens of millions. professor ford concluded the rationale economic actor would say i'm not going to give up all that money on the broadcast tv side just to put a few thousand more people in seats. that's why intuitively you could say there really is not going to be too much of a connection between putting games on broadcast and having a local blackout policy or anti-trust exemption that sus stains it. rather, the league will make money. if it thinks it's going to make more money putting it on broadcast or putting it on espn as with monday night football or on thursday with the nfl network, it will do so. it already has. it's important to differentiate between what the league gets between its local blackout policy and broadcast tv.

i think it's a red herring to threaten taking games off broadcast unless we get this anti-trust exemption for local blackouts. the numbers just don't add up. >> thank you. miss greenburg, what does this mean for ordinary consumers and fans? how are they impacted? >> well, there's a problem with fans being able to afford to go to games. our figures are that from 2010 to 2013 the cost for a family of four to attend an nfl game increased by 8% to $459. that's out of the pun intended, the league of many, many families. so of course they turn to free broadcast to get access to their games. i'm curious about something that mr. waldron has said on several occasions, that the nfl has evidenced a lot of flexibility

about the blackout rule. i wonder what evidence there is of that. i think what we're really talking about, as david has just pointed out, it's enormously profitable, not an act of charity on the part of the nfl. it's enormously profitable for the league to have games on broadcast television and that's why they do it, not because they're so flexible. i don't understand, as you've pointed out, i don't understand the fighting this blackout rule issue when it doesn't seem to be a problem for them and they could be part of the solution instead of being part of the problem. for fans it's obviously critically important for those fans who can't make it to the game because of physical disabilities, the costs are too high, because they have kids at home, i'm puzzled by why the nfl is fighting this very i think sensible proposal.

>> mr. waldron, has any consideration been given within the nfl? i know you can't speak for other leagues, but within the nfl to changing the blackout rule? >> actually, after the fcc repealed its rule in late september, commissioner goodell said that he was going to study it. my understanding is that the owner's committee is studying this issue. >> is there a time line for it possibly actually reversing the rule? >> i am not aware of any time line for that. i can get back to you on that. >> if you could let us know whether there is any time line for the committee reaching a conclusion, i'd appreciate it. what will be the determining factors in the consideration that the owners -- and they're the ones to decide? >> yes, yes. >> what will be the determining factor in their decision? >> it's a really good question and i will come back to a

comment that was just made, an economist study that said blackouts actually increase ticket sales by 4,000. that's the league's contention. so that's the balance that the league has faced which is, we want to have fans' attendance and games on television. that's the balance that we face and it has been adjusted over the years in order to frankly take care of some of the large stadiums that were out there and lots of consequences. so that is the consequence which is the incentive for fans to attend as well as maximizing broadcast television. we don't like blackouts. no one likes blackouts, but they look for that balance. that's exactly what the owner's committee is looking at. >> i strongly encourage them to do the right thing on their own. i think they become heros rather than the opposite which they are now. it is an outdated, obsolete rule

which in many respects, to be very blunt, the owners seem to work hard to avoid imposing as a matter of practice. that's why they issue free tickets or low priced tickets or fictionalize their attendance, not in the sense of any fraudulent activity, but they go through the pretense of filling the stadium so as to avoid the blackout which is against their interests and the threat of a blackout gives them a black eye no matter what they do. i look forward to hearing more. >> i will share that perspective. thank you, senator. >> miss greenberg, i hear about cable rates all the time. you've raised the issue very appropriately. when we talk to cable companies, they point to the cost of sports as driving, in many respects,

these rates skyward. is it fair to black out games after driving up those costs to the fans of, in effect, buying the cable services and mr. waldron has raised this as well. >> absolutely not. consumers are right to be furious about the fact that they're paying these very high rates and may not even have access to the sports programming that they are paying for. not to mention all of the other subsidies that taxpayers and consumers provide to sports teams. it's patently unfair and that's one of the reasons why we're so strongly supportive of this legislation. we think consumers are angry about it and they have a right to get access to the programming that they paid for. >> when you go back to your

client whom you've represented well here today, mr. waldron, i hope you'll remind them that we are acutely aware of those other public benefits that the league enjoys, and not just your league. again, it's not meant to put the focus only on the nfl but those benefits in subsidies and infrastructure, whether it's transportation or stadiums or other kinds of public benefits that professional sports enjoys and we've chosen to single out one which is the anti-trust exemption. these public trusts really demand a public trust from the league itself, special public benefits in my view demand a recognition of that public trust from the league. do any of the other witnesses --

>> there is one category of american here who has not been mentioned and is harmed by the local blackout policy. i just want to make sure this goes on the record. local broadcasters, local grocery stores, local business people often scramble at the last minute to buy up blocks of tickets in order to avoid a blackout. if ever there was an example of a tax being imposed on business people, that's it. it is a tax imposed on them by virtue of this protection, the anti-trust exemption, that allows the league to threaten a blackout. i'll point out that the sports fans coalition in our reply comments pointed to allegations that were provided to us from an executive we wish to remain anonymous, that the reason why those three playoff games that you alluded to in your opening

statement in green bay, indianapolis, cincinnati, the reason why those threatened blackouts didn't occur, it was alleged, was because the nfl pressured broadcast networks to buy up unsold tickets in order to avoid the blackout. now, let's assume for a moment that that allegation is true. let me get this straight. the united states government gives the nfl an anti-trust exemption, the nfl takes that anti-trust exemption and exerts power on other third parties to get them to buy something from the nfl at full value. now, the nfl had every opportunity to turn around to me, to sports fans coalition and say that's blatantly false, how dare you make such allegations. instead they said nothing, nothing. for weeks, nothing. when it was their turn to file at the fcc, the best they could come up with was if sports fans

coalition cares for fans, they shouldn't care how we employ blackouts. in my opinion that's an admission. do we allow the league to avoid blackouts. they talk about how few there are, yes, that's true, but how did we get there? do we allow the league to avoid blackouts by coercing others, allegedly, to purchase tickets, or do we say enough is enough, you don't get the gift anymore. you don't get to have your anti-trust exemption for local blackouts. there would be a loud cheer not just among fans but in my opinion, local broadcasters, local grocery stores and local business people if we did that. >> thank you. i might point out with respect to those local businesses and grocery stores and broadcasters, if they got together the way that clubs or teams do in collaboration to maximize their

bargaining power, they would be seeing their state attorney general or the united states attorney general and they would be in court defending against an anti-trust prosecution, civil or criminal. so this exemption is really very special, very unique, and very undeserved if the leagues in my view fail to recognize their special public trust because of that unique exemption. i would invite any other comments. if there are none, we're going to keep the record open for one week and i will adjourn. thank you.

this senate hearing on sports broadcast blackouts can be viewed if you missed any of it on our website shortly at c-span.org. over on the senate floor today members holding several rounds of votes on president obama's executive and judicial branch nominees. meanwhile, the house today taking up a bill that would nullify the president's executive order on immigration. for more on that and other action in congress, we talk to a capitol hill reporter. >> the road to the omni bus spending bill and the end of the 113th session of congress has a stop first in the u.s. house with immigration and ted yoho's bill, a florida congressman from florida. he said my bill preserves

article one legislative powers in congress. joining us from capitol hill is rebecca sha bad who covers congress for the hill. why is the house interested in taking up this bill today? >> i think house g.o.p. leadership is taking up the yoho bill because number one, the bill would try and nullify president obama's immigration executive orders, but number two, it's really considered a show boat, a symbolic vote. it's not going to get to the senate. president obama just issued a veto threat if it even got to the white house. it's just a way to kind of give republicans an outlet to express their frustration with president obama's executive order. so it really will not become any action. it's just a way to satisfy a lot of conservatives who want to attack the president's executive orders. >> you're writing on your latest

article on the hill that they're planning to unveil their spending package on monday. read that at the hill.com. define what it is and tell us how does the issue of immigration, the president's executive actions play into what the house will do next week. >> the kromny bus is not a breakfast pastry as some have joked. it's basically the combination of a long term spending bill known as an omni bus spending package and short term bill known as a contending resolution or cr. it's going to fund most of the government until next september, through the rest of the fiscal year for most of the government agencies. however, the cr portion of it will only fund the department of homeland security for a couple of months. how g.o.p. leadership, they feel that this is a way to give republicans more of an opportunity and time early next year once they've taken control

of both of house and senate to attack president obama's immigration orders. maybe this will give them a chance to kind of coordinate how they could possibly de-fund the executive orders. it's unclear how they would do that. but it definitely gives them a way to kind of have another showdown early next year once they have power. >> what role is senator ted cruz and house republican conservative republicans, what role are they having in tying the immigration debate into the spending debate? >> ted cruz kind of came out at the front of this yesterday. he stood outside the capitol with a bunch of house conservatives calling on all of congress to de-fund president obama's immigration order. mcconnell, boehner, they've all said no more shutdowns. so by defunding the executive orders, that will lead to a

shutdown. everyone acknowledges that. it almost was like deja vu yesterday because it reminded everyone of the leadup to the october 2013 government shutdown had he led the charge to defund obamacare at that point. at this point i think a lot of the top republicans in the house and senate, they learned their lessons from the october 2013 shutdown because the republican approval numbers, they dropped after the end of those 16 days. they don't want to go through that again if they want to take the white house in 2016. >> you're also writing about some of the disagreement on the democratic side in terms of the spending. you wrote this week, pelosi in a tough spot as democrats split over g.o.p. funding bill. why is she in a tough spot? >> well, a lot of democrats, the white house, they all want an omni bus spending package. they want to fund the government, including the department of homeland security,

for the rest of the fiscal year just like that omni bus portion of that package. and so a lot of democrats are upset that they have this cr portion that would only fund the department of homeland security for a couple of months. a number of democrats have argued that only funding that department for only a short period of time really could put u.s. national security at risk because there's kind of this up in the air situation as far as the budget goes at that agency. the other thing is that with a cr, that basically is the same level of funding as the previous year, and that does not allow the agency to start new programs that they want to do on counter-terrorism. it kind of puts homeland security in a really tough spot. there are some democrats who are suggesting they're not going to rule out voting on this package because some are acknowledging at this point that republicans

will need democrat votes. >> what kind of spending measure would they like to see? >> they want a 12-bill omni bus spending package, 12 bills that funds the entire government through next september. that's the ideal situation here. that's what the senate and house appropriations committee have been working on for more than a month now. it's kind of sad for them to see all of their work kind of going up in flames as far as the homeland security portion of this package. this is what republicans are trying to do to try and satisfy their base in a way to attack the immigration orders. >> follow rebecca sha bat on twitter and read more at the hill.com. thanks for joining us. >> thankis for having me. coming up this afternoon on c-span 3 we'll hear live remarks from outgoing secretary chuck hagel and will provide an update

on his department's efforts in preventing and sporesponding so sexual assaults. that's 1:30 eastern time. we plan to bring you labor secretary tom perez, showing that millions of american workers are victims of wage violations. that's live at 2:00 eastern. we hope to have that for you as well here on c-span 3. now though it's a discussion on grand jury decisions handed down yesterday in new york city and earlier in ferguson, missouri. it's from today's washington journal. >> democratic congressman jeffries represents brooklyn in the congress and joins us this morning to talk about budget issues and other things happening as the 113th congress winds down. welcome to the program. we wanted to start off though where we've been talking with our viewers this morning, reaction to the grand jury decision yesterday on staten island. what was your initial reaction? >> good morning. it's good to be back.

certainly it was a miscarriage of justice, something that should shock the conscience of all under the law. it's hard to imagine how this grand jury could not have come up with a single charge in the context of the choke hold death that took place for all the world to see caught on video tape. choke hold is un thauthorized a has been banned for 20 years. the medical examer ruled that the manner of death was homicide resulting from chest compressions. we know that he said i can't believe on 11 times. on 11 times, the officers who were on the scene ignored him. this is a tragedy, and we really need to look at our broken criminal justice system in terms of its inability to deliver

accountability often when a police officer is accused of using excessive force an unarmed african-american man. >> where does this leave your faith with the new york city justice system, the police department, the grand jury process? >> i continue to believe in america and our capacity the rise to the occasion when faced with challenges. we have had challenges particularly along race relations from the inception of the republic. people all across america who have lost a lot of faith or never had any faith in the ability of the criminal justice system to provide equal protection under the law. that's not just a phrase. those aren't just words. that's the 14th amendment of the united states constitution. so we've got some work to do. it's going to require presidential leadership, the department of justice to move

forward with a full and fair investigation as to whether eric garner's civil rights have been violated and congressional action. we've been saying congress can't run away from this problem. we've got to run towards this problem and be part of the solution. >> given that your party is part of the minority again, what does that congressional leadership look like? >> i had already been part of a bipartisan task force on overcriminalization to took place over the last two years at the judiciary committee level, five democrats, five republicans, significant idealogical diversity, all of whom realize that we have a broken criminal justice system that has resulted in far so many people in america being incarcerated of all races, far too much prosecutorial discretion, and far too many restraints being put on judges in terms of the administration of justice in a fair and

equitable fashion. that could be a starting place where we can find common ground. >> your background is as an attorney, correct? >> absolutely. i guess you could say i'm a recovering attorney at this point, but i practiced law for nine years before being elected to the new york state legislature. >> you mentioned that president obama earlier this week announcing for 50,000 body police cameras and the funding to go with it. what kind of impact do you think that will have? >> it's a modest step in the right direction. certainly in the ferguson case where there was a lack of clarity as to what actually happened and you had witnesses differing in their accounts as what often occurs and certainly the police officer communicating a version of events consistent with his desire to be exonerated, but many other witnesses indicating that excessive force seemed to have been used, body cameras in that instance would have provided some clarity. but the garner case illustrates

that video footage alone is not significant. we saw the entire encounter unfold as it relates to the choke hold death of eric garner, yet this grand jury still doesn't indict. >> back to the business of congress, today marks one week before the current budget agreement expires, so a budget and bill is coming up some time in the next week or so. what are the biggest challenges there for you? >> we've got to be able to fund the government and get out of the cycle of constant crises. the short term funding mechanism has been employed because of congress's inability or unwillingness to try to find common ground and simply do our job. so i'm hopeful that in advance of december 11th when we will run out of the lawful authority to fund the government, we will agree upon a funding mechanism through the next fiscal year so we can deal with the other problems facing the american

people that the american people have elected us to try to solve. >> will you be on the budget committee? >> those decisions haven't been made, but i do hope to maintain my position on the judiciary committee and the budget committee. >> our guest is congressman jeffries of new york. we invite you to join the conversation. again, you can join us on twitter. we're @c-spanwj. you were behind the effort monday night for the so-called special order speeches that were covered on c-span, reacting to the ferguson grand jury decision. how did that come about? >> well, the cbc felt it was important to address the issue head on in terms of injustice in the criminal justice system and the need to really tackle the issue of how police officers

interact with communities of color all across america. we've seen problems in ferguson. we've seen problems in staten island. recently in the brooklyn district that i represent i had an unarmed 28-year-old african-american male who was shot dead by a police officer allegedly by accident but the bullet went right through this young man's chest into his heart. this has happened over and over again. and of course the cleveland case of ta mere race. so we wanted to make it clear to america as well as congress that we took this issue seriously and we areally wanted to focus on the problem in a manner that went beyond words. >> what's your relationship like with the new york city police department? >> i've got a very good relationship with the new york city police department and a tremendous amount of respect for the police department. they are there to protect and serve. every community, particularly those with higher rates of crime want police officers there. we just also want equal protection under the law. police officers should also want a better relationship because

their best ally in crime fighting can be cooperation between the citizens that they are there to protect and serve who got information that can be communicated in terms of the crime fighting efforts. >> you mentioned ta mere rice, a tweet here that the attorney general eric holder traveling today to cleveland where a 12-year-old african-american boy was recently shot by a police officer. let's get to our calls. to our democrats line in ft. myers, florida, this is carl. go ahead. >> caller: thank you for taking my call. i wanted to comment on the recent incident in new york. are you there? >> we are here. go ahead with your comment. >> caller: i wanted to comment on the recent incident in new york. there's one simple problem. the solution to these problems,

if a cop -- i'm almost 80 years old. i've lived a long time, so when i cop tells me to do something, i do it. you don't resist cops if cops w tell you to walk on the sidewalk, walk on the sidewalk. don't argue with them. if they tell you to put your hands up, they want to handcuff you like the recent incident, you do what they tell you and there will be no problem. that's a problem with these people that they don't want to obey the cops. that's the simple problem. it's simple. i've never had a problem with a cop in my life. >> okay. thoughts on that? >> well the sentiment that you want to comply with a lawful police order should be obvious to all americans. i appreciate you making that observation. but when you look at the video, it is clear that eric garner initially is frustrated by the harassment from his perspective

that was coming his way with respect to the allegation that he was selling loose cigarettes. now, at best, that's an administrative violation. it's not a capital offense that should have resulted in his death. but if you watch the video, which is the benefit of us having the footage for every american to see, there's a point very early on in the encounter where eric garner throws his hands in the air in a clear position of submission, yet he is taken down by this officer, put into a chokehold, which by the way has been unauthorized by the police department, banned for the last 20 years. so that was a violation of police procedure. and then asked for help by saying, i can't breathe 11 different times. on 11 different occasions, this officer and other officers failed to respond. so that is the reason that eric garner is dead. that's what the video shows. it was a homicide according to the medical examiner.

and we have to move forward understanding those are the facts. >> to bob in west virginia. good morning. >> caller: good morning. how are you? >> fine. thank you. bob, you are on air. >> caller: what i wanted to say is this. i am a former d.c. homicide detective. it's always a tragedy whenever law enforcement takes someone's life. however, i've been listening to all this. i see that we keep on talking about the medical examiner said it was a homicide. every death where it's taken whether it's a justifiable homicide or not a justifiable homicide is ruled a homicide by the medical examiner's office. and as a police officer -- a

former police officers, you would see we're talking about a chokehold. what the person did was not a chokehold that is taught in law enforcement. so it was not a chokehold. it was a bar hold across the throat. >> as a former police officer, would you say there was another way he could have diffused that situation? or did he -- go ahead. >> caller: i do believe that there is another way he could have diffused that situation. he could have called on the radio for more police officers to come. the gentleman was extremely large. and i'm sure that the officer, as you see in the video is a lot smaller than the person that he was trying to arrest. >> has there been any specific discussion yet about the training tactics in new york city about their encounters with the public, not just this one

scenario. >> several of us have had conversations at the highest level of the police department. they have indicated there will be retraining that needs to take place. certainly, with respect to the medical examiner, i appreciate your perspective here and your service in law enforcement. the medical examiner did determine this was a homicide. so the question for the grand jury was that justifiable? you indicated i think correctly that this could have been diffused in a different way. the chokehold that was used was not a justifiable tactic and it did result in eric garner's death. >> here is new hampshire. katherine is on our independent line. >> caller: good morning. i have a suggestion. my dream budget would include a project that would bring the country together. and i will call it usa, power of the planet. we need a huge top priority project.

in the past, we had the manhattan project, going to the moon, the great society. and i think the u.s. needs to spend huge, huge dollars and bring the best scientific minds together to create fusion energy. this energy would be forever inexpensive, non-polluting and there are groups working in the usa on it now. if we could focus and have say a two year time frame, not 20 years to create fusion energy, it would be huge for the united states and the world. and oil and coal energy producing companies wouldn't like this. so we would have to include their -- include them by letting them help earn a certain percentage for maintaining and running the fusion facilities. we close down the coal mines and close down the electrical power plants and such.

>> is there any sort of willingness in congress for that spending level, that sort of spending project? >> we have to move toward clean energy. and certainly i think her notion of a big project that can capture the attention and imagination of the american people in the congress is important. transportation and infrastructure is perhaps -- we have a crumbling infrastructure system. the united states has been the envy but we have fallen behind. we have to look for things, i agree, that bring people together. hopefully in the next congress we will do that. >> i will ask you about the bill coming up on the house floor today. your colleagues, it's a republican bill that's intended to stop the president from implementing his executive order on immigration. what did you think about the president's plan? and secondly, what do you think of this legislation? >> i think the president was within his authority to move forward. we have a broken immigration system. for too long more than 300 days

since the senate passed a bill designed to fix our broken immigration system, the house of representatives majority refused to act. so it was important for the president to step forward. every president since eisenhower has enacted some for the of executive action to deal with deferred enforcement in the context of immigration. it's been done 39 times. it was appropriate for the president do it in this instance to focus our resources on deporting felons and not families. but as the president said, we should figure out a legislative solution to the problem. >> how much is immigration and legal status an issue in your district? >> 33% of the people that i represent were actually born outside of the united states. so i've got an incredibly diverse district.

i represent more russian-speaking jewish immigrants from the former soviet union than any other member of congress in the country. there are more than two dozen languages in the district i represent. that's a wonderful thing. >> have you heard feedback from those groups, from your constituents on the president's plan? >> nobody appreciates the value of immigrants more than the city of new york. we are a city of immigrants who built the great big apple, just like immigrants have helped to build this country. so they're supportive of the president's actions but want to see us fix the broken system. >> next up is nate. >> caller: how are you doing? on november 28, 2014, the u.n. anti-torture panel, they are investigating the united states for incidents of police brutality, especially against african-americans, that's probably going to be what does

us more good than anything. a lot of things that i have notice going on is identical to what happened in nazi germany. when hitler told the people, if you go with the opposing party, then they are going to make you -- the middle class pay taxes for the poor people. pretty similar to what's happening now so-called obamacare. once hitler did that, then he starts spending a lot of money in the military and things like that to hold on to his power and stuff like that. the good thing is -- the bad thing is, he had to demonize a group. the group he demonized was the jews. we all know how that worked out, how so many of them -- some of them got out of there, but a lot of them, they got killed and they was killed on the streets and stuff like that. history is kind of repeating

itself. american people have to understand that because the world -- i'm glad they said they will not let this happen again. i'm glad they are investigating now. i don't know why the news is not talking about it. they could if they wanted to. the world is not going to let this happen again. it's sad so say, my father and them fought for this country and now we might have to have another country come in here to save black people. >> that's nate in kansas city. >> nate, i'm of the view that nothing can be compared to the holocaust, the trans-atlantic slave trade and slavery in this country. nothing can be compared to the native american genocide and a special place in hell reserved for those who perpetrated those international horrors. but there clearly is a problem in this country as it relates to our broken criminal justice system and the inability to deliver justice when an unarmed ri