Antitrust Jury Hammers NFL Over ‘Sunday Ticket’ Pricing Scheme
In a stunning verdict, a California federal jury has ordered the NFL to pay a staggering $4.7 billion for gouging subscribers of its “Sunday Ticket” broadcasts. The ruling caps a decade-long legal battle, finding that the NFL colluded with its teams to artificially jack up prices for millions of residential and commercial subscribers.
The Breakdown:
- Residential Class: $4.6 billion
- Commercial Subscribers (bars and restaurants): $96 million
Under U.S. antitrust law, damages could triple, potentially ballooning the total to over $14 billion.
The Fallout
The NFL, in a defiant statement, vowed to challenge the decision, labeling the claims as unfounded. They had even attempted to get the court to rule in their favor earlier this week, which would have nullified the verdict altogether.
Plaintiff’s Victory
Attorneys for the plaintiffs expressed their satisfaction with the outcome, representing a vast group of subscribers who felt squeezed by the inflated prices.
A Decade in the Making
The lawsuit, initiated over a decade ago, accused the NFL of leveraging broadcast agreements to maintain a tight grip on distribution, thereby allowing DirecTV to charge exorbitant rates as the exclusive “Sunday Ticket” distributor.
The Core Issue
A subscription to “Sunday Ticket” – the sole avenue for watching out-of-market games – currently costs up to $449 through its new distributor, Google’s YouTube. Neither DirecTV nor Google were defendants in this trial.
NFL’s Defense
The league maintained that “Sunday Ticket” is a premium offering that enhances viewers’ access to games, which are otherwise freely available on local networks.
Scope of the Case
The plaintiffs included over 2.4 million residential customers and 48,000 commercial entities who subscribed to “NFL Sunday Ticket” from June 2011 to February 2023.
