Senator sends a warning shot at the NFL over Black Friday game

The NFL will announce its 2025 schedule next week, but at least one senator has a not-so-subtle warning about the league‘s Black Friday game.

At a Senate hearing focused on the shift from television to streaming Tuesday, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) highlighted an obscure rule in the the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961, which grants the NFL antitrust protection to sell national TV packages worth billions of dollars. In exchange, the NFL is limited from broadcasting games on Friday nights or Saturdays from the second Friday in September through the second Saturday in December.

The NFL has “tiptoed” up to the limits of the rule in recent years by streaming a Black Friday game on Amazon on the day after Thanksgiving, Cruz said, describing it as a “growing concern” to lawmakers. The game has been scheduled to kick off at 3 p.m. and conclude by 6 p.m., allowing it to sidestep the limits Congress intended.

Cruz said the rule is designed to “protect” high school and college football fans, and pointed out Black Friday had historically been the home of prominent local college football rivalries, including Texas vs. Texas A&M.

“There are millions of sports fans who like being able to follow high school and college and professional football without having to choose amongst them,” Cruz said during the hearing.

The NFL did not respond to a request for comment. The league will release its 2025 schedule on May 14, and plans to stream a Black Friday game on Amazon’s Prime Video for the third straight season.

Last season, the NFL also skirted by the rule by including the Eagles in a Week 1 Friday-night game against the Green Bay Packers in Brazil. Thanks to an early Labor Day, the league was able to squeeze it in despite high school football games taking place at the same time.

For the upcoming season, the Los Angeles Chargers are hosting a game in Brazil on Friday, Sept. 5, thanks to Labor Day falling on Sept. 1.

The NFL was the only major U.S. sports league that didn’t have a representative at Tuesday’s hearing. Commissioner Roger Goodell was invited by Cruz but declined to participate, despite having attended an event at the White House Monday to announce Washington, D.C., hosting the NFL draft in 2027.

“Goodell is free to decline the invitation; only a subpoena would compel him to attend,” wrote ProFootballTalk’s Mike Florio. “Still, saying ‘no’ to the folks who hold the legislative power carries with it some risk.”

While Cruz hinted at a need to examine the NFL’s anti-trust exemption, the Senate has yet to take any concrete steps to change the league‘s lucrative protection from Congress. And President Donald Trump has been much friendlier to the league compared to his first term, when he disinvited the Eagles from the White House and called Goodell a “dope” and “a stupid guy.”