Jury orders NFL to pay nearly $4.8 billion in ‘Sunday Ticket’ case – NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth

A jury in a U.S. District Court on Thursday ordered the NFL to pay nearly $4.8 billion in damages after ruling that the league violated antitrust law by broadcasting 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 individuals.

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

The NFL said it would appeal the ruling. This 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 the class action claims in this case are baseless and without merit.”

The jury of five men and three women deliberated for nearly 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 has maintained that it has the right to sell the “Sunday Ticket” under an antitrust exemption for broadcasts. The plaintiffs argue that only applies to terrestrial broadcasts, not pay television.

DirecTV had “Sunday Ticket” from its inception in 1994 through 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 Mucky Duck sports bar in San Francisco, but was dismissed in 2017. Two years later, the 9th U.S. Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over California and eight other states, reinstated the case. Gutierrez ruled last year that the case could be handled as a class action.