The NFL faces a multibillion-dollar antitrust lawsuit over its Sunday Ticket package

New York
CNN
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A class-action lawsuit challenging the legality of the NFL’s Sunday ticket package, with opening statements scheduled for Thursday, could shake up television rights deals in professional sports and how teams make money.

The case, first filed in 2015, focuses on a package of non-local NFL games that are not shown on other networks across the country. The lawsuit claims that by limiting broadcasts of “out-of-market” games to the Sunday Ticket package, the NFL forces customers who want to watch only one team or a small group of teams to pay more.

“Given the relatively low cost of Internet streaming and satellite and cable television, any team operating independently would offer its games at a competitive price to anyone in the country who wanted to watch that particular team,” the plaintiffs’ lawyers argued in the lawsuit. . “But instead, all teams abandoned this option in favor of creating a more lucrative monopoly.”

The plaintiffs are seeking billions in possible damages that could be tripled under antitrust law. The NFL argues that the current arrangement provides fans with the widest possible selection of games at a good price.

Witnesses who could be called in the case include NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, team owners Jerry Jones and Robert Kraft, as well as executives from various television networks and DirecTV, which held the exclusive Sunday Ticket package until it lost it to Google-owned YouTube TV on beginning of last season, at a reported cost of $2 billion per year. YouTube charges fans $449 a year for the package.

The case, pending in federal court in Los Angeles, was dismissed by a district court in 2017 and then reinstated by the Los Angeles District Court. U.S. Court of Appeals in 2019. This is the argument of lawyers from Susman Godfrey, a large national company that, just before the case went to court, settled a case against Fox News by Dominion Voting Systems for over $787 million.

The NFL is known to settle several high-profile cases against it rather than reveal and analyze its practices in open court. These include a $790 million settlement that ended the St. Plaintiffs’ lawsuit. Louis, who opposed the Rams’ move to Los Angeles in 2016, and the $765 million settlement in 2013 that established a fund to compensate players who suffered brain injuries as a result of traumatic brain injuries. concussions during days spent on the pitch.