Some sports leagues do contractually obligate that their broadcasters include a certain number of telecasts on over-the-air television as part of their overall contracts.
[2][3][4] Anti-siphoning law in Germany is contained in Article 1 of the State Treaty for Modernization of the Media Order, which entered into force in November 2020.
This protected status applies to the following events: A "generally accessible" television channel is defined as those which are receivable without any additional payment (beyond the necessary equipment) in two-thirds of households, regardless of signal type (analog or digital) or medium (broadcast, cable, satellite, or Internet).
Tata Sky (which, at the time of the lawsuit, was partly owned by 21st Century Fox, the parent company of Star India which owns the Star Sports networks) filed a lawsuit over the rule, arguing that these simulcasts devalued its exclusive rights to these events because DD National is a must-carry channel.
[8] The effect of such a designation is that the event must be available on a "qualifying broadcaster", which currently comprises RTÉ, Virgin Media TV, or TG4.
In the early 1960s, the Federal Communications Commission implemented "the anti-siphoning rules" pertaining to the availability of theatrical motion pictures for broadcast pay TV.
In the end of the 1960s the public and the government raised concerns that cable operators can outbid free-to-air channels and "siphon" popular content, first of all sports, off the free air.
Specific (i.e. annual) sporting events could not be "siphoned off" by cable at all if they had been broadcast on free airwaves during any of the previous five years.
[16][clarification needed] The Department of Justice and a number of cable providers contested the FCC ruling in courts as unconstitutional.
[15] In recent years, a growing number of major domestic and international sporting events previously aired by free-to-air channels have migrated to pay-TV outlets.
Since 2007, excluding the World Series, Major League Baseball's postseason playoffs have largely moved to cable, while ESPN airs the majority of bowl games of college football (including the College Football Playoff and National Championship, and those owned and operated by its subsidiary ESPN Events).
[19][20] In 2023, Major League Soccer shifted to a streaming-oriented broadcasting model, with all matches streaming on the Apple TV app and MLS Season Pass subscription, leaving a limited linear television package for Fox Sports.
In these cases, NFL rules require simulcasts of the games to be syndicated to television stations within the home markets of the teams that are participating.
However, in 2015, ESPN began to simulcast the game on ABC (which returned the NFL to the network for the first time since Super Bowl XL) instead.