A jury in US district court ruled on Thursday that the NFL violated antitrust laws in distributing out-of-market Sunday afternoon games on a premium subscription service and has awarded nearly $4.7bn in damages.
The jury ordered the league to pay $4bn in damages to the residential class and $96m in damages to the commercial class. Under federal antitrust laws, the amount will rise to $12.3bn.
The lawsuit covered 2.4m residential subscribers and 48,000 businesses who paid for the package of out-of-market games from the 2011 through 2022 seasons on DirecTV. The lawsuit claimed the league broke antitrust laws by selling its package of Sunday games at an inflated price. The subscribers also say the league restricted competition by offering Sunday Ticket only on a satellite provider.
The jury of five men and three women deliberated for nearly five hours before reaching its decision.
“This case transcends football. This case matters,” plaintiffs attorney Bill Carmody said during Wednesday’s closing arguments. “It’s about justice. It’s about telling the 32 team owners who collectively own all the big TV rights, the most popular content in the history of TV – that’s what they have. It’s about telling them that even you cannot ignore the antitrust laws. Even you cannot collude to overcharge consumers. Even you can’t hide the truth and think you’re going to get away with it.”
The NFL said it would appeal against the verdict. That appeal would go to the ninth circuit and then possibly the supreme court.
The league maintained it has the right to sell Sunday Ticket under its antitrust exemption for broadcasting. The plaintiffs say that only covers over-the-air broadcasts and not pay TV.
“We are disappointed with the jury’s verdict today in the NFL Sunday Ticket class action lawsuit,” the league said in a statement. “We continue to believe that our media distribution strategy, which features all NFL games broadcast on free over-the-air television in the markets of the participating teams and national distribution of our most popular games, supplemented by many additional choices including RedZone, Sunday Ticket and NFL+, is by far the most fan friendly distribution model in all of sports and entertainment.
“We will certainly contest this decision as we believe that the class action claims in this case are baseless and without merit.”
DirecTV had Sunday Ticket from its inception in 1994 through 2022. The league signed a seven-year deal with Google’s YouTube TV that began with the 2023 season.
The lawsuit was originally filed in 2015 by the Mucky Duck sports bar in San Francisco but was dismissed in 2017. Two years later, the nine US circuit court of appeals, which has jurisdiction over California and eight other states, reinstated the case.