Federal judge overturns $4.7 billion ‘Sunday Ticket’ verdict, rules for NFL

A federal judge has overturned a jury verdict that awarded Sunday Ticket subscribers $4.7 billion in damages in a class action lawsuit against the NFL and ruled in the NFL’s favor.

District Judge Philip Gutierrez ruled Thursday that the testimony of two witnesses representing the subscribers was based on flawed methodology and should be thrown out.

“Without the testimony of Dr. (Daniel) Rascher and Dr. (John) Zona, no reasonable jury could have found injuries or damages to the entire group,” Gutierrez wrote toward the end of his 16-page ruling.

The NFL thanked Judge Gutierrez in a statement after the decision.

“We are grateful for today’s ruling in the Sunday Ticket class action lawsuit,” the statement read. “We believe the NFL’s media distribution model provides our fans with a variety of options to follow the game they love, including local broadcasts of every game on free over-the-air television. We thank Judge Gutierrez for his time and consideration of this matter and look forward to an exciting 2024 NFL season.”

On June 27, a 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 affected 2.4 million residential subscribers and 48,000 businesses in the United States who paid for a DirecTV package that included out-of-market matches from the 2011-2022 seasons.

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).

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

This is not the first time the NFL has obtained a ruling ending the proceedings in the case, which has been ongoing since 2015.

In 2017, U.S. District Judge Beverly Reid O’Connell dismissed the lawsuit and ruled in favor of the NFL, finding that the “Sunday Ticket” service did not cause a reduction in the number of NFL game broadcasts and that even if DirecTV charged excessive prices, this “in itself did not constitute competitive harm” because it had to negotiate with the NFL to offer the package.

Two years later, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reopened the case.

It is likely that the plaintiff will appeal again to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.