This contest pits the NFL against Comcast Corp., the nations biggest cable television company. At stake is the success of the NFL Network, the leagues cable channel.

More than five years after it started, the channel still lacks national distribution. The NFL blames Comcast, and has stepped up its game in Washington, asking the government to help it get more of the companys 24.2 million subscribers.

The league has almost tripled spending on lobbying, hired its first full-time lobbyist, and engaged the services of three ex-lawmakers, including former Buffalo Bills quarterback Jack Kemp. Comcast has boosted its own efforts to sway policy makers, outspending the NFL by more than 10 to 1.

“Its two monopolies butting heads,” said Rick Gentile, director of the Seton Hall Sports Poll at Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey. “Right now it appears the cable systems have the power — they get to say yea or nay.”

The NFL Network has 42 million viewers on cable and satellite TV. In a complaint to the Federal Communications Commission last May, the league said it needs at least 50 million subscribers to attract national advertisers.

Bottleneck Power

Philadelphia-based Comcast unfairly slashed the networks potential audience by moving it from a tier of channels with 8.6 million viewers to a sports bundle seen by 1.4 million, the New York-based NFL said in its complaint to the FCC.

Comcasts own sports networks, Versus and the Golf Channel, are provided to more subscribers, according to the NFL. “Comcast exploited its bottleneck power,” the league said in the filing.

The NFL wants the FCC to order better placement on Comcasts cable systems, and for Congress to ensure quick decisions when independent networks complain to the agency of mistreatment by cable companies.

An administrative law judge at the FCC is to hear the case in April, the same month the NFLs contract with Comcast is due to expire. The ruling ultimately will be affirmed or rejected by the five-member FCC.

Responding to the complaint, Comcast told the FCC the NFL Network had raised its fees and had “limited commercial appeal,” offering only eight live regular-season games. The “minimal value” of the channel doesnt justify the 70 cents a subscriber the NFL charges Comcast, the company said.

“The NFL is trying to force an overpriced network,” on cable companies, Comcast said in a Jan. 26 FCC filing. The NFL Network isnt carried at all by Time Warner Cable Inc., the second-largest cable operator with 13.1 million subscribers.

Three weeks after the FCC filing last year, the NFL formed Gridiron PAC, its first political action committee, Federal Election Commission records show. Through Dec. 31, the PAC raised $313,113 from football-team owners, league officials and their families. Separately, team owners and their families contributed $1.3 million to federal candidates and the political parties for the 2008 elections.

The leagues spending on lobbying grew to $1.1 million last year, from $380,000 in 2006, according to disclosure forms. The NFL has hired three new outside firms to help it, including Kemp Partners, founded and headed by Kemp, a Republican who represented New York in Congress from 1971 to 1989.

Neither Kemp nor his firm has “performed any legislative or strategic work for us in Washington on FCC or broadcasting issues,” NFL spokesman Joe Browne said. Kemp wasnt available for comment, said James R. Taylor, a managing partner at Washington-based Kemp Partners.

More Issues

Comcast isnt sitting on the sidelines. Its spending on lobbying rose to $12.5 million last year from $5.6 million in 2006. Its PAC contributed $2 million in the 2008 elections, up from $679,600 during the last presidential election in 2004.

Since Jan. 1, 2007, the company has added seven lobbying firms to a team that already included former Republican Senator Don Nickles of Oklahoma and former Representatives Ed Jenkins, a Georgia Democrat, and Bob Walker, a Pennsylvania Republican.

Source