Jury orders NFL to pay nearly $4.8 billion in ‘Sunday Ticket’ antitrust case

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A U.S. District Court jury on Thursday ordered an NFL team to pay nearly $4.8 billion in damages after ruling that the league violated antitrust laws by distributing out-of-market Sunday afternoon games on a premium subscription service.

The jury awarded damages of $4.7 billion to individuals and $96 million to non-injured individuals.

The lawsuit covered 2.4 million individual subscribers and 48,000 businesses who paid for a package of out-of-market games from the 2011-2022 seasons on DirecTV. The lawsuit alleged that the league violated antitrust laws by selling a package of Sunday games at an inflated price. Subscribers also claim the league limits competition by offering “Sunday Ticket” only from a satellite provider.

The NFL said it would appeal the ruling. The appeal will go to the 9th Circuit and then likely to the Supreme Court.

“We are disappointed with today’s jury verdict in the NFL Sunday Ticket class action lawsuit,” the league said in a statement. “We continue to believe that our media distribution strategy, which includes all NFL games broadcast on free over-the-air television in participating team markets and national distribution of our most popular games, complemented by a variety of additional options including RedZone, Sunday Ticket and NFL+, is by far the most fan-friendly distribution model across all of sports and entertainment.

“We will certainly challenge this decision as we believe that the class claims in this case are baseless and without merit.”

The jury of five men and three women deliberated for almost five hours before reaching their decision.

“This case goes beyond football. This case matters,” plaintiffs’ attorney Bill Carmody said during closing arguments Wednesday. “It’s about justice. It’s about telling the 32 team owners who collectively own all the major television rights that the most popular content in the history of television — that’s what they own. It’s about telling them that even you can’t ignore the antitrust laws. Even you can’t collude to overcharge consumers. Even you can’t hide the truth and think you can get away with it.”

The league maintained that it had the right to sell “Sunday Ticket” under its antitrust exemption for broadcasting. The plaintiffs claim that this only applies to terrestrial broadcasts, not pay TV.

DirecTV had “Sunday Ticket” from its inception in 1994 until 2022. The league signed a seven-year deal with Google-owned YouTube TV that began with the 2023 season.

The lawsuit was originally filed in 2015 by San Francisco sports bar Mucky Duck but was dismissed in 2017. Two years later, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over California and eight other states, reopened the case. Last year, Gutierrez ruled that the case could proceed as a class-action lawsuit.