LOS ANGELES – The NFL has been found guilty of violating antitrust laws in its distribution of Sunday afternoon games out of market through its premium subscription service Sunday Ticket.
Even though a jury of 5 men and three women in a US district court awarded the private and industrial subscribers of the “Sunday Ticket” damages of just about 4.8 billion dollars on Thursday, neither settlement checks nor the discontinuation of the service are to be expected within the near future.
How did the jury determine?
How long did the method take?
Three weeks. It began with opening arguments on June 6 and included 10 days of testimony before closing arguments on Wednesday. The jury deliberated for nearly five hours on Wednesday and Thursday before reaching a call.
The NFL invited Commissioner Roger Goodell and Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones as witnesses, but that didn’t help. The plaintiffs relied mainly on economic experts and videos of pre-trial testimony.
Who were the plaintiffs?
The class motion lawsuit affected greater than 2.4 million private customers and 48,000 businesses, primarily bars and restaurants, that purchased the NFL Sunday Ticket from June 17, 2011, to February 7, 2023.
What is the character of the damage?
The jury awarded $4.7 billion to non-public clients and $96 million to businesses. Because damages are tripled under federal antitrust law, the NFL could ultimately be responsible for $14.39 billion if it doesn’t settle or has its penalty reduced.
The residential damages were barely lower than the $5.6 billion offered to plaintiffs under their college football model, but higher than under a model through which Sunday Ticket would have had multiple providers and reduced subscription costs by 49.7% ($2.81 billion).
The business damages were much smaller than those presented by the plaintiffs of their three models, with the bottom damage being $332 million under the so-called “NFL Tax” model.
How would the NFL pay damages?
The sum can be divided evenly among the many 32 teams. This signifies that each team could pay as much as $449.6 million.
Will there be immediate changes?
Changes to the Sunday Ticket package and/or the best way the NFL broadcasts its Sunday afternoon games can be placed on hold until all appeals are resolved. However, if the league was smart, it could start offering team-by-team or week-by-week packages while lowering the worth.
ESPN had proposed offering Sunday Ticket for $70 per season with team-by-team packages in 2022, however the NFL rejected it before moving forward with YouTube TV.
If the NFL had offered individual packages for individual teams from the start, certainly one of the lead plaintiffs likely wouldn’t have been a part of the lawsuit.
Rob Lippincott, a New Orleans native who moved to California, bought Sunday Tickets only for Saints games.
“He just wanted the Saints. If he had the choice to buy a single-team package and watch Saints games, he absolutely would have done that,” plaintiffs' attorney Amanda Bonn said in her opening statement on June 6.
But college football had to alter, why not the NFL?
The groundbreaking case regarding college football on television in 1984 was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. This happened on the U.S. District Court level.
The NFL announced it could appeal the ruling, which might go to the ninth Circuit Court of Appeals after which possibly to the Supreme Court.
It wouldn’t be the primary time the ninth Circuit has heard this 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, ruling in favor of the NFL. Two years later, the ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the case.
What were the important thing aspects within the plaintiff's case?
In his closing remarks he said: Lead attorney Bill Carmody showed an NFL memo from April 2017 This showed that in 2017 the league was exploring a world without “Sunday Ticket,” through which cable channels broadcast games outside their market on Sunday afternoons that weren’t shown on Fox or CBS.
Although Judge Philip S. Gutierrez expressed his frustration with the plaintiffs' attorneys midway through the trial, Carmody's closing argument was clear and straightforward to grasp.
Was the NFL the underdog on this process?
The NFL will be the queen of American sports and some of the powerful leagues on this planet, nevertheless it often loses in court, especially in Los Angeles. In 1982, a federal court in Los Angeles ruled that the league had violated antitrust laws by not allowing Al Davis to maneuver the Raiders from Oakland to Los Angeles.
What's next?
All eyes are on July 31, when Gutierrez is scheduled to listen to post-trial motions, including the NFL's request that he rule in favor of the league since the judge ruled the plaintiffs did not prove their case.
Could this have an effect on other sports?
All major leagues offer out-of-market packages and are watching this case closely, as selling individual teams' out-of-market streaming rights – especially in baseball – would further increase the divide between wealthy and poor.
A key difference, nonetheless, is that MLB, NBA and NHL sell their off-market packages through multiple distributors and share the revenue per subscriber slightly than receiving a direct rights fee.
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