The Patriots recently said that the NFL told the team to get off of Bluesky. The motivation relates to the money going into the league’s pockets. Or not.

Ben Fischer of Sports Business Journal recently explained that the league has kept its teams away from the social media upstart because the NFL wants Bluesky to make it worth the league’s while.

As Fischer writes, “[T]he NFL . . . is acutely aware of the league’s capability to be a business kingmaker. If all 32 teams organically got on Bluesky, the platform could create a robust NFL news hub out of those accounts without much work at all. The NFL knows exactly what that would be worth to Bluesky, and wants to be paid for it.”

As a result, there will be no NFL teams on Bluesky until Bluesky crams sufficient green bills into the NFL’s coffers.

There still seems to be an antitrust violation lurking at the bottom of this, with the trade association that binds 32 independent businesses together banning any of them from doing business with Bluesky. Of course, if Bluesky would dare to attempt to assert its rights, it can kiss goodbye to any chance that the league will ever say, “Hello.”