It's a little known secret that on Sunday mornings during the fall and winter seasons, church pastors across America occasionally shorten our sermons a bit to let the congregation get home to watch NFL games on television. Ministers know that for those worshipers who cannot afford tickets to a Pittsburgh Steelers game, their living room becomes Heinz Field, their children celebrating every touchdown from the family couch.

Rev. Al Sharpton, president and founder of the National Action Network, is a civil rights leader and former presidential candidate (jjohn99403@aol.com).

Today, the outrageous prices for tickets, concessions and parking are shutting more and more fans out of the stadiums. In just the past 10 years, ticket prices have gone through the roof. These days, it costs a family of four more than $300 to see a game. With prices like these, it's no wonder the stands usually contain a far lower percentage of minorities than the playing field does. Now these cost increases are coming to your living room, making it more expensive to watch a game on TV.

With all the uproar about the NFL raising prices, I decided to do my homework and talk to some trusted friends about what's going on, and what I found out surprised me. The NFL is charging more and more to put their games on television, ultimately hurting the fans at home.

This year alone the NFL will make billions just from broadcast TV deals. But that's not enough -- now the NFL wants to charge home viewers to watch its new cable channel, the NFL Network. If the NFL gets its way, all basic cable consumers, football fans or not, will pay more -- to the tune of $600 million each year.

You would think that a channel called the NFL Network would have a lot of game coverage, but really it only offers eight games each week -- games that have been rescheduled to Thursday and Saturday nights and that do not even feature your home team. For only eight extra games, the NFL Network wants to quadruple its rates to nearly a dollar per subscriber per month, digging even deeper into working families' wallets.

Sports teams and leagues have been creating their own TV networks for years. But this NFL power grab has even prompted Congress to question if the league is violating the Sherman Antitrust Act by using its monopoly control over pro-football television rights to force unreasonable price hikes on consumers. If the NFL -- the fattest cat of all among sports leagues -- gets away with bamboozling consumers, then every sport will be emboldened to follow suit, littering our cable bills with additional price increases.

That is why Time Warner and Cablevision have decided not to carry the network, arguing that most viewers -- including most football fans -- would not want to be forced to pay premium fees for a few games in which they may have little or no interest. The NFL has demanded that cable carriers put the NFL Network in basic channel lineups, meaning everyone pays the price, even viewers who don't watch football.

While I believe no one should be gouged for watching football on TV, there are some fans willing to pay a premium for NFL content. That is why I support putting the NFL Network and other big sports channels in a premium sports package. This gives diehard fans who can afford it the option to upgrade if they really want extra out-of- town games and more highlight reels. With home team games still on the basic channels, neither football fans nor everyday consumers will have to foot the bill.

It seems clear to me that the NFL is pushing football further out of reach for ordinary Americans. However we solve this problem, we must keep costs down for consumers. The NFL should keep a great American pastime within the means of working-class people.