[Congressional Bills 108th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 2745 Introduced in House (IH)]







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 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.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Baseball Fan Protection 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 presumption as to amount allocable to 
player contracts) is amended 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 presumed that not more 
        than 50 percent of the consideration 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 percent 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 locally.--
                    ``(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 
                        reasonable opportunity for, local television 
                        stations to make bids to license or otherwise 
                        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 opportunities.--
                The notice and opportunity provided to local television 
                stations shall be provided 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 located.''.
    (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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