Federal judge reportedly overturns jury verdict in NFL's Sunday Ticket lawsuit in win for league
A federal judge reportedly overturned the jury verdict in the NFL’s Sunday Ticket lawsuit on Thursday afternoon in what was a huge win for the league ahead of the 2024 season.
A jury in Los Angeles ruled earlier this summer that the league had violated federal antitrust laws by selling its Sunday Ticket package only on DirectTV at an inflated price, which set the league up to be potentially liable for more than $14 billion in damages.
BREAKING: A federal district judge has overturned the jury verdict in the NFL Sunday Ticket case
— Daniel Kaplan (@KaplanSportsBiz) August 1, 2024
The verdict had been in doubt in recent days after U.S. District Judge Philip Gutierrez, who oversaw the case, said Wednesday that the jury did not follow his instructions in determining damages, according to Courthouse News. The jury found the NFL liable for more than $4.6 billion in damages to the residential class and nearly $97 million in damages to the commercial class, though Gutierrez said they used their own calculations while coming up with those totals. Under federal antitrust laws, damages can be tripled — which could have resulted in the NFL being liable for more than $14 billion.
In his ruling, Gutierrez wrote that "the jury’s damages awards were not based on the ‘evidence and reasonable inferences’ but instead were more akin to ‘guesswork or speculation,’” according to Front Office Sports. No new trial was ordered.
“We are grateful for today’s ruling in the Sunday Ticket class action lawsuit," the NFL said in a statement, via Front Office Sports' A.J. Perez. "We believe that the NFL's media distribution model provides our fans with an array of options to follow the game they love, including local broadcasts of every single game on free over-the-air television. We thank Judge Gutierrez for his time and attention to this case and look forward to an exciting 2024 NFL season.”
A class-action lawsuit was brought against the NFL earlier this year alleging that it violated antitrust laws restricting competition in an effort to protect its deals with Fox and CBS for Sunday afternoon games each season. DirectTV had Sunday Ticket exclusively from 1994-2022, and then YouTube TV took over before the 2023 season. The package typically costs $349 per season.
The lawsuit argued that the NFL kept the cost of Sunday Ticket artificially high in order to profit off of fans who wanted to watch their favorite team play in out-of-market games and bars who wanted to attract customers on game days. This, the lawsuit argued, priced out most fans and forced them to watch only the local game instead.
The NFL argued throughout the lawsuit that Sunday Ticket was simply a premium service, and that it came at a premium price.
“The case is about choice,” NFL attorney Beth Wilkinson said to the jury during the case. “This is a valuable, premium product. Think about all the choices available to fans? We want as many people as possible to watch the free broadcasts.”
The plaintiffs in the case initially sought $7 billion in damages. After the verdict was handed down, the NFL said it planned to appeal as it felt the damages were "excessive and unreasonable."
Though this legal battle is likely far from over, the NFL picked up a big legal win just before the first preseason game of the 2024 season was set to kick off in Canton, Ohio.
