Appellate court revives 'Sunday Ticket' antitrust verdict against the NFL

A verdict in a class-action lawsuit filed by “Sunday Ticket” subscribers claiming the NFL broke antitrust laws was revived by a federal appeals court on Friday, more than two years after a federal judge reversed a jury's decision that found the league liable for $4.7 billion in damages.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sent the case back to the district court in Los Angeles to reinstate the jury's verdict and hold a new trial on damages.

Attorneys for both sides said they are considering their options after the ruling.

The lawsuit covered 2.4 million residential subscribers and 48,000 businesses in the United States who paid for the “Sunday Ticket” package on DirecTV of out-of-market games from the 2011 through 2022 seasons. The lawsuit claimed the league broke antitrust laws by selling the package at an inflated price. The subscribers also said the NFL restricted competition by offering “Sunday Ticket” only on a satellite provider.

A jury awarded $4.7 billion in damages to residential and commercial subscribers in June 2024. The award was thrown out one month later by U.S. District Judge Philip Gutierrez after he ruled the testimony of two expert witnesses for the subscribers should have been excluded. Gutierrez determined the two witnesses used flawed methodologies.

But a three-judge appellate panel ruled Gutierrez should not have excluded that testimony.

"Opinions are neither unfounded nor unreliable merely because they are impeachable," circuit court Judge Anthony D. Johnstone wrote. "Such opinions are for the jury to weigh at trial. Once a jury does so, its verdict must stand unless it is clearly not supported by the evidence.”

Johnstone also wrote in his opinion that: “Reasonable jurors may debate whether college and professional football telecasts are sufficiently similar or how out-of-market NFL games would have become available in the absence of the NFL’s anticompetitive conduct. But those questions are for the jury to decide.”

The appellate court did find that the jury did not follow Gutierrez's instructions in determining damages and that it was based on guesswork or speculation and came up with its own calculations.

The NFL said in a statement: “We continue to believe that our media distribution strategy — which features 100 percent of 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 including RedZone, Sunday Ticket and NFL Plus — is by far the most fan-friendly distribution model in all of sports and entertainment.”

The lawsuit was originally filed in 2015 by the Mucky Duck sports bar in San Francisco. On June 30, 2017, U.S. District Judge Beverly Reid O’Connell dismissed the lawsuit and ruled for the NFL because she said “Sunday Ticket” did not reduce output of NFL games and that even though DirecTV may have charged inflated prices, that did not “on its own, constitute harm to competition” because it had to negotiate with the NFL to carry the package.

Two years later, the 9th Circuit Court, which has jurisdiction over California and eight other states, reinstated the case. In 2023, Gutierrez ruled the case could proceed as a class action, which occurred in June 2024.

A jury of five men and three women found the NFL liable for $4,610,331,671.74 in damages to the residential class (home subscribers) and $96,928,272.90 in damages to the commercial class (business subscribers).

Since damages can be tripled under federal antitrust laws, the NFL could have ended up being liable for $14,121,779,833.92.

The “Sunday Ticket” moved to YouTube in 2023 as part of a seven-year agreement.

See AP’s full NFL coverage here