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Jury Rules NFL Owes More Than $4 Billion in Sunday Ticket Antitrust Case
https://frontofficesports.com/nfl-sunday-ticket-trial-jury-ruling/A jury in Los Angeles sided against the NFL on Thursday in the Sunday Ticket trial that could cost the league billions. The verdict was delivered in U.S. District Court in the Central District of California.
The league has been ordered to pay $96 million to bars that said they were overcharged for Sunday Ticket, and $4.7 billion to fans who paid for the streaming package. Under federal antitrust law, those damages are tripled, bringing the total to more than $14 billion.
The lawsuit was initially filed in 2015 by a San Francisco sports bar called the Mucky Duck, which claimed the league violated antitrust law by bundling all the out-of-market games and making it impossible to buy a one-team package. The case was dismissed in ’17 but reinstated in ’19. It has since become a class action suit made up of millions of bars, restaurants, and subscribers from June 17, 2011, through Feb. 7, 2023. The plaintiffs initially sought $7 billion in damages, which could have been tripled to $21 billion per federal law.
One of the key claims of the suit is that the league inflates the price of NFL Sunday Ticket. Today on YouTube TV, the package costs $349 per year. It was revealed during the trial that the league declined an ESPN proposal to take over the offering last season and price it at $70, and include single-team packages. It also came to light that the league had drafted a proposal in 2017 to ax Sunday Ticket entirely and move games to a number of cable channels. NFL lawyers and officials, including Roger Goodell, have argued in response that Sunday Ticket is a “premium product” that wasn’t intended to end up in every living room.
The league has been ordered to pay $96 million to bars that said they were overcharged for Sunday Ticket, and $4.7 billion to fans who paid for the streaming package. Under federal antitrust law, those damages are tripled, bringing the total to more than $14 billion.
The lawsuit was initially filed in 2015 by a San Francisco sports bar called the Mucky Duck, which claimed the league violated antitrust law by bundling all the out-of-market games and making it impossible to buy a one-team package. The case was dismissed in ’17 but reinstated in ’19. It has since become a class action suit made up of millions of bars, restaurants, and subscribers from June 17, 2011, through Feb. 7, 2023. The plaintiffs initially sought $7 billion in damages, which could have been tripled to $21 billion per federal law.
One of the key claims of the suit is that the league inflates the price of NFL Sunday Ticket. Today on YouTube TV, the package costs $349 per year. It was revealed during the trial that the league declined an ESPN proposal to take over the offering last season and price it at $70, and include single-team packages. It also came to light that the league had drafted a proposal in 2017 to ax Sunday Ticket entirely and move games to a number of cable channels. NFL lawyers and officials, including Roger Goodell, have argued in response that Sunday Ticket is a “premium product” that wasn’t intended to end up in every living room.
League will challenge.
