Sports/Athletics Lobbying
Lobbying activity reported under the Lobbying Disclosure Act on this issue: registrants, expenditures, and specific bills lobbied, drawn from the Senate Office of Public Records quarterly LD-2 filings.
The verdict
PlainInfluence tracks $15.3M in itemized Sports/Athletics lobbying disclosures across 127 filers, among them NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE, NIKE, INC., OFFICE OF THE COMMISSIONER OF BASEBALL.
- $15.3M
- tracked Sports/Athletics lobbying
- 127
- organizations lobbying
- $120K
- average per filer
Issue code: SPO · 127 organizations lobbying on this issue
What the Sports/Athletics Lobbying Data Shows
Under Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act code SPO, 127 organizations reported federal lobbying activity on Sports/Athletics across the 2023-2024 reporting period, with combined expenditures of $15.3M. That volume of filings places Sports/Athletics among the issues where corporate, trade-association, and advocacy lobbying is actively shaping the legislative and regulatory agenda, with each registrant required to disclose specific bills, agencies contacted, and in-house lobbyists engaged.
NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE leads all filers on this issue with $5.3M in tracked lobbying expenditures, and the top 10 reporting organizations - including NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE, NIKE, INC., OFFICE OF THE COMMISSIONER OF BASEBALL - typically account for a disproportionate share of total outlays, a concentration pattern that repeats across most LDA issue codes. Each of these organizations files quarterly LD-2 disclosures naming the lobbyists deployed and the chambers of Congress or executive agencies contacted.
The 127 filers tracked here represent a structured picture of who is paying to be heard on Sports/Athletics - useful context when evaluating hearings, committee markups, and rulemaking on related topics. Because LDA filings are a public-record trailing indicator, spending in the 2023-2024 window reflects priorities that will continue to ripple through the 118th and 119th Congresses before any policy outcomes register in the data.
Top Spenders
Who spends the most on Sports/Athletics
Top organizations by reported lobbying spend on this issue code, from Senate LDA filings.
Source: U.S. Senate Office of Public Records, Lobbying Disclosure Act filings LD-2 quarterly lobbying disclosure filings (issue codes, registrants, expenditures) · 2024 Aggregated from quarterly LD-2 filings for issue code SPO; covers 127 registered organizations across the 2023-2024 reporting period.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much is spent lobbying on Sports/Athletics?
A total of $15.3M has been spent lobbying on Sports/Athletics by 127 organizations, according to Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA) filings for 2023-2024. The top spender is NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE, with $5.3M in total lobbying expenditures.
Who are the biggest spenders on Sports/Athletics lobbying?
The top organizations lobbying on Sports/Athletics include NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE, NIKE, INC., OFFICE OF THE COMMISSIONER OF BASEBALL. These organizations file lobbying disclosures with the Senate Office of Public Records, which are publicly available under the Lobbying Disclosure Act.
What is the Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA)?
The Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 requires lobbyists and lobbying firms to register and file quarterly reports with the Secretary of the Senate and the Clerk of the House. These filings disclose the issues lobbied on, the amount spent, and the government entities contacted. PlainInfluence uses these filings to track lobbying activity by issue area.
How many organizations lobby on Sports/Athletics?
127 organizations have filed lobbying disclosures listing Sports/Athletics as a lobbying issue during the 2023-2024 reporting period. Each organization may file multiple times per year as lobbying activities continue across quarters.
Where does lobbying issue data come from?
All lobbying data is sourced from the Senate Office of Public Records, which collects filings under the Lobbying Disclosure Act. Organizations must disclose their lobbying expenditures, the specific issues they lobby on (using standardized issue codes), and the government bodies they contact. Data shown covers 2023-2024 filings.
Related guides
Data: Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA) filings, 2023-2024. Verify filings at lda.senate.gov.
Read our methodology - how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.
Related
Every figure on PlainInfluence is rendered directly from official FEC, Senate LDA and USAspending records, no number is typed in by an editor. Lobbying-issue disclosure totals are aggregated directly from Senate LDA bulk data, no figure is hand-entered. Disclosed contributions, lobbying, and contracts are lawful, regulated activities, appearing on this page is not an allegation of wrongdoing. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, our disclaimer, or report a data error. Data current as of 2023-2024.