A federal judge in California has ordered the NFL to pay about $4.7 billion in a class-action lawsuit after ruling in favor of Sunday Ticket subscribers on Thursday.
The NFL will appeal the decision.
The suit involved 2.4 million residential subscribers and 48,000 businesses who paid for the out-of-market package of games from the 2011 through 2022 seasons on DirecTV. The suit alleged that the league violated antitrust laws by selling its Sunday game package at an inflated price. The subscribers also claim that the league restricted competition by offering “Sunday Ticket” only on one satellite provider.
The jury of five men and three women deliberated for nearly five hours before reaching its decision.
‘This case transcends football. This case is important,” plaintiffs’ attorney Bill Carmody said during closing arguments Wednesday. ‘This is about justice. It’s about telling the 32 team owners that they collectively own all of the major television rights, content most popular in the history of television – that’s what they have. It’s about telling them that not even you can ignore the antitrust laws and not even you can conspire to overcharge consumers. to think that you will get your way.
Some NFL fans who subscribe to DirecTV have complained about the network’s advertising that all NFL games can be watched on its service.
The NFL was expected to appeal to the Ninth Circuit and then possibly the Supreme Court.
The league maintained that it has the right to sell “Sunday Ticket” under its antitrust exemption for broadcasts. The plaintiffs claim that only covers over-the-air broadcasts and not pay television.
“We are disappointed with today’s jury verdict in the NFL Sunday Ticket class action lawsuit,” the league said in a statement. “We continue to believe that our media distribution strategy, which includes all NFL games broadcast on free broadcast television in participating teams’ markets and national distribution of our most popular games, complemented by many additional options, such as RedZone, Sunday Ticket and NFL+, is by far the most fan-friendly distribution model in all of sports and entertainment.
“We will certainly challenge this decision because we believe the class action claims in this case are unfounded and lack merit.”
DirecTV had ‘Sunday Ticket’ from its inception in 1994 until 2022. The league signed a seven-year deal with Google’s YouTube TV that began with the 2023 season.
The lawsuit was originally filed in 2015 by the Mucky Duck sports bar in San Francisco but was dismissed in 2017. Two years later, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over California and eight other states, reinstated the case. Gutierrez ruled last year that the case could proceed as a class action.
