NFL NETWORK HAS CONGRESS ANTI-TRUST GUYS CURIOUS--(is MLB, Inc. next?)

"The NFL is about to start airing live regular-season games on its own network, and that has Congress a bit curious.

"We're intrigued, to put it mildly, what the NFL has in mind," Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said Tuesday at a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Specter grilled NFL executive vice president and general counsel Jeffrey Pash during the 90-minute hearing on sports programming. The hearing focused on how live games on the NFL Network could affect cable and satellite rates and whether the games raise any antitrust issues in connection with

• the Sports Broadcasting Act. ! (we'll see)

Pash responded that the NFL Network has indeed increased its fees, but he cited the popularity of the league's product as justification. He said other NFL Network carriers _ including DirecTV, EchoStar, Comcast and Cox _ have not passed along the price increase to their customers. However, Comcast wants to start offering the network as part of a premium sports-tier package, which has sparked a legal challenge from the NFL." AP story

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