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Here's part of an article from ESPN.com's Gregg Easterbrook:

This brings us to the real scandal in NFL broadcasting -- not the dispute about NFLN, but that the wonderful Sunday Ticket package, which allows consumers to bypass this problem by paying to see any game, can only be seen by the lucky few with DirecTV. Friends who have DirecTV tell me it's wonderful. But I can't get DirecTV, and millions of others can't either. Anyone who lives around trees or tall buildings cannot on a technical basis receive DirecTV; the phrase "anyone who lives around trees or tall buildings" describes half the United States. For example Bob Crane of Columbia, S.C., a Chicago Bears fan who tried to buy DirecTV, couldn't because the satellite signal cannot be received where he lives. Crane writes, "I was and am still furious that even though I was willing to pay the fee to see my Bears, a monopoly deal leaves me no way to obtain the service."

J. Pierpont Morgan's cartel was busted by Congress. Now Congress should bust the cartel that prevents millions of Americans from choosing for themselves what Sunday NFL game to watch.The wonderful NFL Sunday Ticket, restricted via NFL cartel arrangement to customers of DirecTV in the United States, is available to any cable customer in Canada, as noted by many frostback readers, including Kevin Heselton of Regina, Saskatchewan. This means Canadians get better access to NFL games, played in stadia funded by American taxpayers, than American taxpayers do. Is there somehow some need for the NFL to forbid all but DirecTV customers from choosing any game -- does this somehow advance the NFL business model? No, because as many international readers including Alex McLeish of Beaconsfield, United Kingdom, have reported, anyone who lives outside the United States can now watch any NFL game live by signing up for a Yahoo! streaming video service. Live outside the United States? The NFL is happy to let you watch whatever game you please. Are you an American whose taxes paid for the NFL's stadiums? Sorry, you are shafted.

In 1961, the pre-merger National Football League received an antitrust exemption from Congress, partly in return for its promise that all game broadcasts would be available equally to all Americans. For a decade, the most desirable broadcast service the NFL offers, Sunday Ticket, has been denied to the majority of Americans who don't or can't get DirecTV, in seeming defiance of the league's promise to Congress. Last year the NFL signed a contract that extends the cartel till 2011, and the reason was simple, DirecTV paid a lavish fee. But DirecTV shouldn't be able to buy something that violates at least the spirit, if not the letter, of the NFL's 1961 promise to Congress. As the new Congress takes its seat, the Senate Judiciary Committee has announced it will investigate NFL dealings with DirecTV. Sure the NFL and DirecTV signed a contract, but it's one that violates a public trust -- and Commissioner Roger Goodell, it will go better for you and the sport if you amend the Sunday Ticket deal on your own terms, rather than waiting for Congress to alter it for you. Unless, of course, you'd rather surrender the NFL's antitrust exemption.