Here’s What You Need to Know About the ‘NFL Sunday Ticket’ Verdict and What’s Next

Although a jury of five men and three women in a U.S. District Court on Thursday awarded nearly $4.8 billion in damages to “Sunday Ticket” residential and commercial subscribers, no review of the settlement or shutdown of the service is expected any time soon.

The league violated antitrust laws by selling “Sunday Ticket” exclusively on DirecTV and at an inflated price. By offering the service through only one distributor and at a high price, it limited the subscriber base and allayed the concerns of CBS and Fox about maintaining local viewership while the NFL was receiving a lot of money for its broadcast rights.

Three weeks. It began with opening statements on June 6 and included 10 days of testimony before closing arguments on Wednesday. The jury deliberated for nearly five hours Wednesday and Thursday before reaching its decision.

The NFL called commissioner Roger Goodell and Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones to testify, but it didn’t help. The plaintiffs relied mainly on economists and videotapes of pretrial depositions.

The class action lawsuit covered more than 2.4 million individual subscribers and 48,000 businesses, mostly bars and restaurants, that purchased “NFL Sunday Ticket” between June 17, 2011 and February 7, 2023.

The jury awarded $4.7 billion to individual subscribers and $96 million to businesses. Because damages are triple that under federal antitrust laws, the NFL could ultimately face liability of $14.39 billion if it doesn’t settle or have its costs reduced

The compensation for residents was slightly less than the $5.6 billion offered under the plaintiff’s College Football Model, but higher than the amount offered under a model in which Sunday Ticket would have multiple operators and the subscription cost would be $49 lower. .7% ($2.81 billion).

The damages to the company were significantly lower than those that the plaintiff presented under any of his three models. The lowest amount was $332 million under the model known as the “NFL Tax.”

It would be distributed evenly among the 32 teams. This means that each of them could pay as much as $449.6 million.

Changes to the Sunday Ticket package and/or the way the NFL broadcasts its Sunday afternoon games would be put on hold until all appeals are completed. However, if the league were smart, they would start offering team-by-team or week-by-week packages and lower the price.

ESPN proposed offering a $70-per-season “Sunday Ticket” as part of team packages in 2022, but the NFL rejected the proposal before it appeared on YouTube TV.

If the NFL had offered packages to individual teams from the beginning, it is likely that none of the key members of the class would have participated in the lawsuit.

Rob Lippincott — a New Orleans native who moved to California — purchased a “Sunday Ticket” for Saints games only.

“He just wanted the Saints. If he had a choice to buy a single-team package and watch the Saints games, he certainly would have done that,” plaintiffs’ attorney Amanda Bonn said during opening statements June 6.

The landmark 1984 college football television case was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. It happened at the U.S. District Court level.

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

This wouldn’t be the first time the 9th Circuit Division had dealt with such a case.

The lawsuit was originally filed in 2015 by San Francisco sports bar Mucky Duck. On June 30, 2017, U.S. District Judge Beverly Reid O’Connell dismissed the lawsuit and ruled in favor of the NFL. Two years later, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the case.

During closing arguments, chief legal counsel Bill Carmody showed an NFL memo from April 2017 that showed the league was considering a world without “Sunday Ticket” in 2017, in which cable channels would air out-of-market Sunday afternoon games that Fox or CBS did not show.

Judge Philip S. Gutierrez expressed disappointment with the plaintiffs’ lawyers halfway through the hearing, but Carmody’s closing argument was clear and easy to understand.

The NFL may be the king of American sports and one of the most powerful leagues in the world, but it often loses in court, especially in Los Angeles. It was in Los Angeles federal court in 1982 that a jury ruled that the league had violated antitrust laws by not allowing Al Davis to move the Raiders from Oakland to Los Angeles.

All eyes will turn to July 31, when Gutierrez is scheduled to hear post-trial motions. That will include the NFL’s request to rule in favor of the league because the judge found the plaintiffs failed to prove their case.

All the major leagues offer out-of-market packages and are looking at the issue because individual teams selling their broadcast rights out-of-market, particularly in baseball, would further separate the haves from the have-nots.

One significant difference, however, is that MLB, NBA, and NHL sell their packages off-market to multiple distributors and share the revenue per subscriber, rather than receiving a full rights fee.

AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl