The NFL obtained a $4.7 billion verdict in the Sunday Ticket antitrust lawsuit.

Author: Mike Scarcella

(Reuters) – The National Football League must pay more than $4.7 billion to settle a class action lawsuit alleging it overcharged subscribers to its “Sunday Ticket” television programs, a California federal jury said on Thursday.

A Los Angeles jury agreed with plaintiffs that the NFL conspired with member teams to artificially inflate the price of the “Sunday Ticket” for millions of individual and commercial subscribers.

According to the plaintiffs’ attorney, the jury awarded $4.6 billion in damages to residential entities and $96 million to commercial entities such as bars and restaurants.

The judge could award treble damages under U.S. antitrust law, bringing the total award to more than $14 billion.

The NFL said in a statement that it was disappointed with the jury’s verdict. “We will certainly challenge this decision as we believe that the class claims in this case are baseless and without merit,” it said.

Attorneys representing the groups did not immediately respond to a request for additional comment.

The trial, which began on June 5, ended more than a decade of litigation over the broadcast of “Sunday Ticket.”

Subscribers accused the NFL of using agreements with broadcast partners to maintain control over distribution, which allowed DirecTV to artificially higher prices as the former sole distributor of “Sunday Ticket.”

A residential subscription to “Sunday Ticket,” which is the only streaming option for fans to watch games outside the market, now costs a whopping $449 through its current distributor, Google’s YouTube. DirecTV and Google were not defendants in the lawsuit.

DirecTV is owned by AT&T and Google is owned by Alphabet.

The plaintiffs alleged that the “Sunday Ticket” prices were inflated in order to limit subscriptions and protect the distribution rights fees CBS and Fox paid to broadcast the games in local markets.

The NFL has denied any wrongdoing and argued that “Sunday Ticket” is a “premium” product that increases viewers’ access to games that are already broadcast free on local networks.

The plaintiffs are DirecTV subscribers who purchased “NFL Sunday Ticket” between June 2011 and February 2023. The case involves at least 2.4 million residential customers and 48,000 commercial subscribers, such as bars and restaurants, according to court documents.

(Reporting by Mike Scarcella in Washington; editing by David Bario and Matthew Lewis)