Sean Hannity and Mike Davis dissect the NFL's potential loss of antitrust exemption, arguing that streaming paywalls violate the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 by creating a cartel charging over $1,000 for access. The discussion pivots to international tensions as President Trump appeals to Iran following executions of female protesters, with the U.S. military poised to prevent nuclear proliferation while condemning Senator Chris Murphy for retweeting Iranian propaganda and removing the IRGC from terror watch lists. Ultimately, the episode underscores the necessity of free-market competition in sports and decisive executive action against global threats. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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NFL Streaming Costs and Antitrust00:11:52
This is an iHeart podcast.
Guaranteed human.
All right, news roundup information overload hour.
Here's our toll free telephone number.
It's 800 941 Sean if you want to be a part of the program.
All right, so the FCC chair, Brendan Carr, doubled down on his argument that the NFL could lose its antitrust exemption if they move too many games behind streaming service paywalls.
And the DOJ apparently is investigating the league amid the outcry that it has become too pricey, too complicated for sports fans to watch their favorite teams.
Carr warning that.
Oversight could extend to the FCC and Congress if the shift to streaming worsens.
The experience has become frustrating for a lot of Americans, et cetera, et cetera.
Anyway, so it's like you can watch games on Amazon Prime.
You can watch games on other streaming platforms now this year as well.
And a lot of fans are angry about it.
Anyway, Mike Davis is with us.
He's the founder and president of the Article III Project, speaking out against.
And there's so many people angry at the NFL.
They have, you know, been ready for a course correction.
My biggest problem with the NFL is that they just keep staying woke.
And it's frustrating to me.
I'm glad I don't see it in the NHL playoffs.
And I don't see it that often in other sports like we do see it in the NFL.
I'm surprised there hasn't been a greater outcry about it.
I guess the Kaepernick case was the biggest outcry.
And anyway, it seems to have calmed down.
But however, they do embrace woke.
Anyway, Mike Davis, welcome to the program.
Glad you could be here.
Thank you for having me on, Sean, and you're exactly right.
The NFL is supposed to be accessible to all Americans, real Americans in real America.
And the NFL got an exemption from our federal antitrust laws with the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961, which allows these professional sports leagues to form essentially legally sanctioned cartels.
And this sports broadcasting Broadcasting Act in 1961 allowed the NFL to pool their media rights and sell them to the network instead of having each team negotiate its media rights.
But in exchange for this cartel protection in this law, this sports broadcasting.
When you use a term like cartel, I mean, it just sounds a little harsh to me.
I mean, they're trying to maximize their profits, are they not?
Yeah, I mean, they are, but they're also getting an exemption from our federal antitrust laws, right?
So in exchange for that exemption, They are supposed to make these games accessible to the broadcasters, to Americans on the broadcast networks.
The problem with the NFL now is they are trying to make it not only is it too woke, like you said, Sean, it's also becoming too elite where they want to do streaming, paid streaming for these NFL football games, and it's going to cost Americans over $1,000 if they want to watch.
All of these football games.
And that's just not the deal.
Let me ask you this as somebody that clings really closely to the idea of free markets and less government interference in our lives, I really do cling to that.
What would be the alternative?
In other words, if you took away this exemption that they've had, what would that mean for them?
And they're a private entity in the sense that they're an organization of people, of teams.
There's nothing stopping anybody else from trying to compete with them and trying to build out their own league if they want as an alternative.
There have been attempts in the past.
Donald Trump was part of an attempt to do such.
In other words, so explain to me if they had the exemption pulled, what would prevent them from doing whatever they want with the TV rights?
Well, I mean, if they lost this exemption, it would mean that the NFL would not be able to negotiate on behalf of all the teams.
Each team would have to negotiate their media rights.
And I'm with you, I'm a free market conservative, but a free market requires a functioning market.
And when you have, you say it's harsh, but if you have the NFL as a cartel, essentially, that's.
that's negotiating on behalf of all of the teams, then you don't have a free market.
There's not real negotiations going on.
It's the NFL doing it.
So if you got rid of this exemption, the teams would have to negotiate their own media rights.
But if the NFL wants to keep this exemption, this antitrust exemption from the Sports Project Casting Act of 1961, the NFL has to keep its side of the bargain, which means, okay, you get this antitrust exemption to negotiate But you also have to make the NFL games accessible to as many Americans as you can, which is what has been happening for the last 60 plus years.
It's changing recently where they're trying to go to paid streaming, and that's just cost prohibitive to real Americans in real America.
They can't afford over $1,000 to watch football.
I mean, I'm not going to lie because I'd like to have all the streaming services, and in the case of the NFL, I have Red Zone.
Sure, you probably have that as well.
And Prime, if you want to watch a game.
But however, I mean, the amount of money I spend for all of the different channels and services that are available, I spend a fortune every month, really small fortune, and I don't even watch that much TV.
However, when I do watch TV, I find that so much of it is crap and garbage that just to find a show you want, you have to go through like seven different streaming services just to find something that I'm interested in.
Yeah.
No, I agree.
I mean, look, we have a free market.
If people want to buy streaming, they could buy streaming.
But again, if we're going to do a carve out for the NFL of our antitrust laws, if they get a sweetheart deal with this Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961, they have to live up to their end of the bargain, which is to provide the broadcasting to as many Americans as possible when they get this carve out.
All right.
Explain how it works for other sports.
How does it work for MLB?
How does it work for the NBA?
How does it work for the NHL, for example?
Like, I know the NHL playoffs have started, and most of those games are like on ESPN2 or somewhere like that or TBS.
How does it work in those cases?
Yeah, it's similar.
The Sports Broadcasting Act applies to all the professional sports leagues.
And I think it's just the.
The problem is that it's the NFL that's being pretty aggressive about this.
And they want to go to Amazon Prime, Netflix.
And it's becoming too expensive for Americans to watch football.
And that was not the intent of this law.
And, I mean, again, it applies to all the leaks.
It's going to be interesting to watch all of this play out because I think you're going to see all of these different pay services now that have been making a fortune.
I think they're going to be more competitive than networks and ESPN and so on and so forth.
They're going to be extremely competitive financially in bidding rights for the rights to run these games.
Would you agree?
Yeah, yes.
Look, if the NFL does not want to follow the, that they don't want to keep their end of the bargain with this antitrust exemption, then Congress can repeal the exemption or the DOJ, the Trump Justice Department, the Antitrust Division, Is looking at this right now.
They're investigating the NFL.
So is Brendan Carr at the FCC, as you said.
So, if they want the exemption, they have to keep their end of the bargain.
All right, Mike Davis, we appreciate your insight into this.
I know it's very tough for people.
It gets so expensive.
Everything gets so expensive.
Linda, do you have all these pay channels like I do?
I have all of them.
I do.
It's awful.
I mean, and most people I know end up getting all of them.
I mean, we've got to get to the box.
Yeah, I want to go back to the box.
I want the cable box that everybody thought was too prohibitive and too expensive.
I mean, this is basically.
A box broken into a bunch of little boxes that cost as much as the box, if not more.
All right, think about this.
You have regular cable, right?
And then you have YouTube, and the YouTube channel.
Then you have Netflix.
Then you have Prime.
Then you have Apple.
What am I missing here?
I mean, there's so many services Hulu, Disney, YouTube TV, Fubo, ESPN, ESPN, UFC.
It's ridiculous.
I can't even tell you.
Because all the fights and all the.
And the only thing you really watch regularly is my show.
That's it.
I mean, it's just stuck on Hannity.
And when you're not on, I just watch reruns.
I'm like, oh my gosh, what about last week's Wednesday show?
That was a killer.
I'm putting that one back on.
By the way, Linda is lying through her teeth.
It's not true.
I've never done it.
I've never done it.
The prosecution, the defense is wrong.
The defense is wrong.
But don't you think Mike is right?
Like, you know, Brendan Carr has been talking about it and some other folks have been talking about it.
And I feel like it's one of those things where.
I will tell you, like, we go to watch games, even college ball.
And I'm like, wait, where is that game this weekend?
I thought it was on.
No, no, this one has it here.
I have college football services too.
I have NFL Red Zone.
Do you have NFL Red Zone?
Do you have all the college football services?
I can watch any college game I want.
Yeah, I got rid of anything NFL.
I used to subscribe to the NFL, but I hate them.
So I had to unsubscribe.
And I get it through other networks now.
All right, quick break.
Right back.
More coming up.
Your calls also straight ahead today.
800 941 Sean as we continue.
As we continue our discussion, I have a fiance that loves the University of South Carolina, so I have to have it.
You got to have it.
So, you have the SEC network?
I do.
Yes, I do.
You have the Big Ten network?
I do.
Yeah.
Well, if you really want the game, then they're banking on that you're going to pay for it.
If you really want it that bad, a fan will pay for it.
I don't have time to watch all these games.
I mean, I give my son a hard time.
I mean, he'll take entire Saturdays and Sundays, and it did just football days with him and his boys.
That's it.
And my Panthers didn't make it this year, but to watch the home games for the Florida Panthers, I had to purchase an app, and then it comes up on my phone, and then you sync it to your TV.
Linda, is that not beyond impressive that I can pull that sucker off?
That actually is impressive for you.
And even if it's technology and I have nobody to help me, at that point, I am just going to dive in.
It's just easier for me to say, Linda, fix it.
Sweet baby James, fix it.
I just don't want to, so I try not to.
I mean, that's a terrible thing to do.
Well, now you can watch YouTube.
You can literally learn just about anything on YouTube if you watch.
Well, I'm sure you watch my podcast.
You can watch it on your big screen TV if you go to YouTube and just put in, you know, my podcast and you can watch it whenever you want.
You know, I do have YouTube TV.
Hang out with Sean Hannity.
Do you have a favorite episode?
Well, I'm partial to Greg and John because they're friends.
So I like that episode.
They thought it was a great one.
Wasn't that a good set?
Wasn't that really good?
I just love them because they're good people.
So for me, it was nice to watch that.
Rush Limbaugh Golden Mic Incident00:02:07
John and Greg have years of work, but John specifically really put his neck on the line.
As an undercover investigative journalist and really dug deep to get some of those sources.
They wanted, and without going into all the details, they came after me with a vengeance.
They went after John with a vengeance.
They even went after you because you're friends with me.
Yeah, they're just sick.
It wasn't completely weaponized and gross.
And that's why when this fiend outrage comes where we're holding people on the carpet for actual crimes, like in California and Minnesota for all of the fraud, and they want to be upset about it or you get caught up in it.
Can you say that again?
All of the what?
All of the.
Oh, stop it.
All the fraud.
However, you want to say it.
How do you say fraud?
How do you say fraud?
It's not fraud.
Yeah, how do you say it?
Okay, well, how do you say it?
Okay, are you listening?
For all of the fraud.
It's not fraud.
That's not fraud.
There's no W in there.
That's fraud.
All the fraud.
That's F R O D.
Oh, my gosh.
You don't even hear it.
It's unbelievable.
No, I'm going to have to go back and find the 1996 video of you.
You know what?
You're not going to be allowed to do?
Play it.
So don't waste your time.
Oh, I'm going to waste my time.
Oh, no.
Just like you're not allowed to go back and play me filling in.
The first time I filled in for Rush and the Golden EIB microphone.
That's actually really cool.
That's cool.
You know what?
That's inspiring.
Yes, it is because it's like.
It's so inspiring.
I had a panic attack over it.
I don't want to be reminded of my trauma.
Let me tell you why you're wrong.
This is one of those moments.
Let me tell you why you're wrong.
That is a moment for other people to see and go, wow, you finally make it.
You're filling in for a Rush Limbaugh.
It's a big moment.
And the golden EIB mic goes crashing down in the middle of my opening monologue.
But I mean, and then Rush comes back.
Did you dent it?
He dented the golden EIB microphone.
But here's the cool thing about it from that point on, you're going to do a great show because you've already made the biggest screw up you can make.
Now you just got to do the show.
That part's easy.
And that's inspiring.
Do you think I'd do a better Rush or a better Levin?
Probably Levin.
Iran War Strategy and Isolationists00:05:01
That's it.
You screwed up your country.
That's the end of our Constitution, you idiot.
That's it.
I'm done.
How's that one?
It was perfect.
You know what?
You should try doing your read in Mark Levin's voice.
Now, let me tell you something.
I am really disgusted that there are groups in this country.
I mean, and this is just evidence that the president's not wrong.
The president put out this appeal to Iran that they not execute these eight women.
I'm assuming they mean what they say because the president said, I just got very good news.
I've been informed that the eight women protesters who are going to be executed tonight in Iran will no longer be killed.
Four will be released immediately, four will be sentenced to one month in prison.
I appreciate that Iran leaders, Respected my request.
You know, as the president told me personally last night, Sean, I can bomb them anytime.
And as I reported as I went on the air last night, that this is going to be very short lived, this extension.
It was at the behest of the Pakistani prime minister and at the behest of the people in Iran because they will be impacted by what the president is planning.
This is going to be another level of shock and awe.
We have increased our military presence in the Middle East and we have now restocked and reloaded, and we're ready to go.
Our military is ready to go.
Whatever the president's going to ask for.
And so, if the hardliners in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps win out, then it's going to be massive destruction.
In the end, they're not going to be able to get that nuclear dust.
And in the end, the Strait of Hormuz is going to be open one way or the other.
Although, frankly, half of me wants the rest of the world to take care of that, not us, considering we don't even get any benefit from it because we don't get our oil through the Strait of Hormuz.
But putting that aside.
But there are groups of people in this country, and I discussed this earlier in the program today, that want this president to fail, and it's spectacular to me.
It's incomprehensible to me.
It shouldn't be.
Now, you've got radical leftists.
There's nothing that Donald Trump can do that is ever going to be right in their eyes, ever.
You know, the polls show that the American people are behind the president.
They understand that we can't have a nuclear armed Iran.
The American people are smart.
Then you have the Democrats that have been.
He's losing.
It's been the most.
Unbelievable up to this point military victory in the history of warfare.
It has been such a one sided campaign.
And if the president has to re engage, it'll be again a one sided campaign.
Doesn't mean there's not risk associated with it, it doesn't mean it's easy.
None of this is easy.
And this won't be a forever war.
That much I can tell you.
And sometimes it might take a little longer, a little shorter, but what are we trying to accomplish here?
We don't want a nuclear armed Iran.
We don't want them to be the number one state sponsor of terror.
The easier choice for the president is to bomb them into the Stone Ages.
But the president is trying to thread a needle to get to where he's comfortable being for our national security.
And also think of the 90 million plus Iranian people through no fault of their own that have been terrorized themselves.
And then you have the isolationist lunatics.
The people that would have no problem doing nothing, hear no evil, see no evil, blah, blah, blah.
Okay.
Those people are just dumb.
I don't know.
I have so little respect for them because they learned nothing from history.
They have learned nothing from Mao and China and Stalin and Russia and Hitler and Germany and Mussolini and fascism and Tojo and Japan.
They've learned nothing after World War II.
And they should have embraced the lessons of history.
We didn't need to lose 100 million people because there was enough evidence of an emerging, real, clear, present danger in every one of those cases.
And we could have neutralized all of them earlier if we had so acted.
Well, are we going to repeat the error of history and millions potentially die?
I would hope not.
I would think that would be something that would be universal that we could all agree on.
You know, Linda said to me, Well, do you want me to book someone that disagrees with you?
I'm like, No.
Because there's nothing to say to them.
I'm never going to convince them that taking, preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear power is in the best interest of our children and grandchildren because they've already made up their mind.
And I think some of them are just outright angry the president didn't listen to them because they thought they had such great influence with the president.
And, you know, to see their fragile egos explode is kind of hilarious, but that's separate and apart from what I'm saying here.
Then you've got these Democrats themselves.
Which is so disgusting.
Texas Boots and Foreign Policy00:09:22
You got Chris Murphy of Connecticut retweeting or retruthing or re Xing Iranian propaganda from a foreign news site.
And that was posted by a former UN hack.
And in this article, it bragged that at least 26 Iranian Shadow Fleet vessels bypassed the U.S. blockade.
That was completely fake news.
It was a lie.
Just start there.
Number one.
Number two, Senator Murphy, you know, posts this on X and then adds to it the comment awesome that 26 Iranian shadow fleet vessels were able to get through the U.S. blockade.
He's cheering against his own country in a conflict against the number one state sponsor of terror.
I mean, what kind of human being is this guy?
I mean, you talk about America last.
I mean, you really want to.
You know, he's claiming while I was sarcastic, there's nothing sarcastic about it.
And Murphy was in Europe just prior to this, comparing our duly elected American president to a fascist while speaking to, let's see, an audience full of socialists and communists.
And he has a long history of cozying up to Iran.
In 2019, during Trump's first term, he was secretly meeting with the Iranian foreign minister.
And then he admitted, for years, I have met on occasion with Iran's foreign minister during both the Obama and Trump administrations.
I'd like to know, Chris, inquiring minds want to know what did you talk about?
Did you share your disdain for the great Satan and the little Satan, the U.S. and Israel?
Now, this is a senator in Connecticut that has been elected by the people in Connecticut, you know, which, like New York, is just gone.
That state is just deteriorating from within.
But this is a guy that publicly advocated for Iran's evil Revolutionary Guard to be removed from America's terror watch list.
Listen, I have it on tape.
Listen.
Would you take Iran's Revolutionary Guard off the terror list in order to get a deal?
Yes.
I mean, the practical impact of designating them as a foreign terrorist organization is inconsequential.
We have dozens of other terrorist designations on the IRGC that would remain.
And so, to me, if that's the barrier to getting a deal, then let's get it done.
Wow.
Pretty unbelievable to me.
You know, I mean, a sitting U.S. Senator that has more compassion and sympathy for murderers and terrorists inside the Islamic Revolutionary Guard than for his fellow Americans.
You know, it should make every American sick to their stomach.
You're not going to hear about this on fake news, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS.
You're not going to read about it in the New York Times, Washington Post, MSDNC.
No.
They will ignore it.
I guess I should be grateful because that's one of the reasons that this show has been successful and TV has been successful.
And the launch of the podcast has been successful.
Thanks to all of you.
Anyway, let's get to our phones.
Let's say hi to Tim in Texas.
God bless Texas, Tim.
How are you?
Hey, thank you, Sean.
That senator's an idiot, but let me get to my point.
The ceasefire was supposed to end tonight at 8 o'clock, if I'm not mistaken.
If I were the president and I know he listens to your show, first thing I would do, I would do a business-waiting type attack on Clark Island.
Not to seize it, not to keep boots on the ground, just to evacuate it to where nobody can operate anything, load ships, unload ships, do anything like that.
Then I would put out a notice every six or 12 hours take out an electrical plant, take out some of their infrastructure.
That way they can't say he's committing genocide because you get before warning, put the ball back in the Iranians' court, and make them respond to him without, to your point, without going in and totally annihilating Iran, which we can do in an hour or less.
But that's regardless.
And I hope that what you said about the female, I'll call them victims or whatever you want to call them.
I mean, these women, some of them are as young as 16 years old.
I hope.
I hope.
It's just terrible.
It's horrible.
I hope.
But that's the brutality of this regime.
Now, the president, as he's told me last night, I can do that anytime I want.
And he's now given a timeline three to five days.
We'll see what that means.
We'll see if the Iranians are able to.
Coalesce behind a solution that would work for the president.
And they'll either do it the hard way or the easy way.
You know, the Democrats think they're clever.
If the president, you know, delays what is seemingly inevitable, not understanding that they can't even communicate with each other, the varying factions, then the president's committing war atrocities, which, by the way, everything that you just mentioned is a legitimate, recognized military target, number one.
Number two, or he's taco.
Trump changes his mind.
He's proven over and over again.
How many times does this man have to act before these idiots would give him credit for doing that which Biden, Kamala Harris, Obama, the Clintons all said that we needed to do?
Bush all said we needed to do, and that is prevent Iran from being a nuclear power.
They were 12 days away from weapons enriched uranium.
I don't think the president had a choice here.
He didn't.
And they'll never give him credit for anything he's done.
So let's see what happens.
The only thing I would urge people is don't believe the fake news media.
Don't believe that this is, oh, this is such a setback.
No, it's not.
The president, I mean, leaning into the possibility of peace, knowing all these options are his and his alone, and there's nothing that they can do to stop it, gives him all the cards here.
So let's see what happens.
I think I, for one, prefer a negotiated settlement, although the safer long term settlement.
The better option to end that terror regime completely would be to wipe them out.
However, the pain that would be inflicted on innocent people is very great.
Give the president props for thinking of the people in Iran as well.
Maybe others don't.
I do.
Blake in Texas.
Again, God bless Texas.
Blake, what's going on?
Thank you, Sean.
It's a pleasure and honor to be on your phone with you on the radio here.
Sir, I'd like to say if there's anybody with enough compassion to help those women out who are in peril.
It would be Donald Trump.
And I tell you, we need to be supporting our president.
And we voted him as commander in chief.
And if he needs to make the determination, if boots go in for whatever reason, they go in, whether it's to rescue our airmen or whether to go in and rescue the good people of Iran.
And I wanted to say that I trust him because he has to make.
Decisions in real time.
He can't wait for Congress to nitpick and pithy around with important decisions.
And I want to say that when our young men and women join the military, they join with the intention of being of service to our country in our exile deals, even if it means to go into harm's way.
And when people say, well, we can't have boots on the ground for any reasons.
Well, we don't know all the reasons why we should have boots on the ground.
You know, these military people, they leave their fears and their worries on the bus before they swear in at military enlisted.
Well, we actually did put boots on the ground when we rescued those pilots.
You know, if we have to put boots on the ground if they decide they want to extract the 60% enriched uranium, whether it's the easy way or hard way, I'd respect the president's decision.
If there's an easier way to do it and entomb the thing, okay, we could do that as well.
Now that we know what the enriched uranium is, put it in perspective.
This is going to come to an end.
Just stand by, watch, wait, and see, and just have everyone needs to have a little bit of patience here.
This is complicated business.
Let's put it that way.
Blake, God bless you, man.
Appreciate all our friends in Texas.
All right, that's going to wrap things up for today.
We got a great Hannity tonight, 9 Eastern, on the Fox News channel.
As I said last night, this will be short lived.
There is a ceasefire extension.
The White House said only three to five days.
We get reaction.
Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, Kash Patel will join us tonight.
What about these 11 missing scientists?
Congressman Tim Burchett will join us, and the one and only Clay Travis.