Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday designed to try to prevent the scheduling of rival football games to the Army-Navy Game, which has been held on the second Saturday of December.
The executive order puts pressure on broadcast networks to preserve the timeslot as exclusive to the game. It calls on the FCC to “consider reviewing the public interest obligations of broadcast licensees to determine whether those obligations would require that the Army-Navy Game remain a national service event.”
“If you want to watch football, you don’t have to, but if you want to watch football, you are only watching one game, you are not watching 19 different games,” Trump said at the White House.
The president acknowledged that “we will probably get sued at some point,” an apparent reference to First Amendment raised over government mandates for specific programming.
“We preserve that time, no matter who it is,” Trump said.
Trump wrote on Truth Social in January that he planned to sign the order.
The order reflects the concerns over the expansion of the College Football Playoffs and the possibility of those games competing for the attention of viewers.
Stations enjoy a lesser degree of First Amendment protection than other forms of media, but the Supreme Court has ruled that restrictions have to be “narrowly tailored to further a substantial governmental interest.” That has given the agency the legal ability to regulate such things as indecency and obscenity, as well as commercials in children’s programming. Meanwhile, sports rights have been migrating to streaming platforms, which are outside the FCC’s oversight.
CBS Sports has broadcast the game since 1996 and hold the rights through 2038.
The order reads that “it is the policy of the United States that no college football game, specifically college football’s CFP or other postseason games, be broadcast in a manner that directly conflicts with the Army‑Navy Game.”
It calls on Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick and FCC Chairman Brendan Carr to coordinate with college football and media organizations “with the goal of establishing an exclusive window for the Army-Navy Game, during which no other college football game is broadcast.”
Carr said in a statement, “The annual showdown between Army and Navy is always a classic and showcases the strength and bravery of this national service event. America’s Game stands as a symbol of excellences and our great national sprit. It is important that we continue to reserve a window of time on the second Saturday in December exclusively for this important event.”
English (US) ·