Judge Finds Jury Failed to Follow Instructions in NFL ‘Sunday Ticket’ Case

LOS ANGELES — The judge presiding over a class action lawsuit filed by “Sunday Ticket” subscribers against the NFL found that the jury did not follow his instructions when determining the amount of damages.

District Judge Philip Gutierrez made the remark as he considered a post-hearing motion by the NFL that requested Gutierrez rule on behalf of the league if he found the plaintiffs had failed to prove their case.

Gutierrez can also order a new trial because the eight-person jury presented its own damages calculations.

In instructions to the jury before closing arguments on June 26, Gutierrez said that “damages cannot be based on conjecture or speculation. Plaintiffs must prove the validity of each of the assumptions on which the damages calculation is based.”

On June 27, a federal jury awarded $4.7 billion in damages to individual and commercial subscribers after ruling that the NFL violated antitrust law by broadcasting out-of-market Sunday afternoon games on its premium subscription service.

The lawsuit involved 2.4 million individual subscribers and 48,000 businesses in the United States who paid for a package on DirecTV that included out-of-market games from the 2011–2022 seasons. The lawsuit claimed that the league violated antitrust law by selling the package at an inflated price. Subscribers also claimed that the league limited competition by offering the “Sunday Ticket” exclusively on a satellite provider.

A jury of five men and three women ruled that the NFL is liable for paying damages of $4,610,331,671.74 to individual customers (home users) and $96,928,272.90 to business customers (enterprise users).

The amount determined by the jury was not consistent with the college football model ($7.01 billion) proposed by Daniel Rascher, an economist at the University of San Francisco, nor with the multi-distributor model ($3.48 billion) proposed by John Zona, an expert witness in the case.

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Instead, the jury used the 2021 list price of $293.96 and subtracted $102.74, the average price Sunday Ticket subscribers actually paid. The jury then used the $191.26 it deemed an “overpayment” and multiplied it by the number of subscribers to arrive at the damages amount.

“The amount of damages is indefensible,” NFL attorney Brian Stekloff said during a statement to Gutierrez.

Marc Seltzer, representing Sunday Ticket subscribers, responded that “the evidence presented to the jury supported our case from the outset.”

“Today, we asked the district court to vacate the jury’s verdict in this case, which is inconsistent with the law and unsupported by the evidence presented at trial,” the NFL said in a statement. “The NFL’s media distribution model is the most fan-friendly in sports, with all games broadcast locally on free over-the-air television, in addition to the many other options available to fans who wish to have even greater access to NFL content. We will continue to pursue all avenues to defend the claims brought in this case.”

Because damages can be tripled under federal antitrust law, the NFL could ultimately be liable for $14,121,779,833.92.

The NFL has announced it will appeal the ruling, which will go to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and then likely to the Supreme Court.

Compensation payments, any changes to the Sunday Ticket package and/or the manner in which the NFL broadcasts Sunday afternoon games will be on hold until all appeals are resolved.