A jury ruled Thursday that the NFL must pay more than $4.7 billion in damages for violating antitrust law with its “Sunday Ticket” subscription pricing.
The NFL was ordered to pay $4.7 billion to residential subscribers and $96 million to commercial subscribers, such as bars and restaurants, per legal reporter Meghann Cuniff.
The damages could triple to over $14 billion under federal antitrust law.
The NFL stated that it plans to appeal the decision.
The case concerns the “NFL Sunday Ticket” subscription program for out-of-market games, for which the jury ruled the NFL conspired with network partners to inflate prices.
“We continue to believe that our media distribution strategy, which features all NFL games broadcast on free over-the-air television in the markets of the participating teams and national distribution of our most popular games, supplemented by many additional choices… is by far the most fan friendly distribution model in all of sports and entertainment,” the NFL stated.
The jury could have awarded up to $7 billion in damages, Cuniff noted, which would have climbed to $21 billion under antitrust law.
The class-action lawsuit covered 2.4 million residential subscribers and 48,000 businesses who purchased the package from the NFL and DirecTV between 2011 and 2023, per Joe Reedy of the Associated Press.
The plaintiffs argued that the NFL turned down multiple opportunities to decrease the price of the subscription package.
During the trial, the jury learned of a recent ESPN proposal that would have lowered the Sunday Ticket price to $70 per year, per Alex Schiffer of Front Office Sports. The package currently costs $349 annually on YouTube TV.
Although there is a federal antitrust exemption for the broadcasting of sports, the plaintiffs argued that the exemption only applies to over-the-air broadcasts, not subscription packages.
The jury said yes to all liability questions regarding the Sunday Ticket package, including that DirectTV had “knowingly entered the price-fixing conspiracy” with the NFL, Cuniff reported.
The decision brings into question the future of the Sunday Ticket package, which Google-owned YouTube TV purchased the rights to as of last year, per Cuniff:
U.S. District Judge Philip Gutierrez has expressed frustration with the plaintiffs’ case, which he said last week had “turned into 25 hours of depositions and gobbledygook,” Reedy reported.
He could still decide to overturn the jury’s ruling due to a lack of sufficient evidence, although Cuniff reported that the Thursday decision “will make it harder for him” to side with the NFL.
