I 
108TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 2745
To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to require a sports franchise 
to provide for all of the games played by the franchise to be available 
for local television broadcasting in order to be subject to the presumption 
that 50 percent of the consideration in the sale or exchange of a sports 
franchise is allocable to player contracts. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JULY 15, 2003
Mr. KUCINICH (for himself, Mr. RANGEL, Ms. BORDALLO, and Mr. HINCHEY) 
introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on 
Ways and Means 
A BILL 
To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to require 
a sports franchise to provide for all of the games played 
by the franchise to be available for local television broad-
casting in order to be subject to the presumption that 
50 percent of the consideration in the sale or exchange 
of a sports franchise is allocable to player contracts.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Baseball Fan Protec-
tion Act’’.
SEC. 2. LOCAL TELEVISION BROADCAST REQUIREMENT IN 
THE CASE OF SALES OR EXCHANGES OF 
SPORTS FRANCHISES. 
(a) IN GENERAL.—Subsection (d) of section 1056 of 
the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (relating to presump-
tion as to amount allocable to player contracts) is amend-
ed to read as follows: 
‘‘(d) PRESUMPTION AS TO AMOUNT ALLOCABLE TO 
PLAYER CONTRACTS.—
‘‘(1) IN GENERAL.—In the case of any sale or 
exchange described in subsection (a), it shall be pre-
sumed that not more than 50 percent of the consid-
eration is allocable to contracts for the services of 
athletes unless it is established to the satisfaction of 
the Secretary that a specified amount in excess of 
50 percent is properly allocable to such contracts. 
Nothing in the preceding sentence shall give rise to 
a presumption that an allocation of less than 50 per-
cent of the consideration to contracts for the services 
of athletes is a proper allocation. 
‘‘(2) ZERO
PERCENT
ALLOCATION
UNLESS 
GAMES FIRST MADE AVAILABLE FOR BROADCAST LO-
CALLY.—
‘‘(A) IN GENERAL.—For purposes of the 
first sentence of paragraph (1), an allocation of
zero percent shall be presumed unless, as part 
of the sale or exchange, the transferee agrees—
‘‘(i) to provide notice to, and a rea-
sonable opportunity for, local television 
stations to make bids to license or other-
wise purchase the rights to broadcast the 
games to be played by the franchise before 
offering others the opportunity to make 
such bids, and 
‘‘(ii) to accept the highest reasonable 
bid from a local television station for such 
rights. 
‘‘(B) FREQUENCY OF LOCAL BIDDING OP-
PORTUNITIES.—The notice and opportunity 
provided to local television stations shall be pro-
vided each time the transferee sells broadcast 
rights during the period that the transferee 
owns the franchise. 
‘‘(C) LOCAL
TELEVISION
STATION.—For 
purposes of this paragraph, a local television 
station is a television broadcast station (as such 
term is defined in section 325(b)(7) of the 
Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 
325(b)(7)) having a local market (as such term 
is defined in section 122(j) of title 17, United
States Code) that includes the entire central 
city of the metropolitan statistical area within 
which, or closest to which, the home stadium, 
arena, or other facility of the franchise is lo-
cated.’’. 
(b) EFFECTIVE DATE.—The amendment made by 
this section shall apply to sales or exchanges of franchises 
after December 31, 1999, in taxable years ending after 
such date.
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