Federal Judge Overturns $4.7 Billion Jury Verdict in ‘Sunday Ticket’ Case and NFL Rules

LOS ANGELES – A federal judge overturned the jury’s $4.7 billion verdict in the class-action lawsuit brought by “Sunday Ticket” subscribers against the NFL and awarded the judgment to the NFL.

U.S. District Judge Philip Gutierrez ruled Thursday that the testimony of two subscriber witnesses had flawed methodologies and should have been excluded.

“Without the testimony of Dr. (Daniel) Rascher and Dr. (John) Zona, no reasonable jury could have found class-wide injuries or damages,” Gutierrez wrote at the end of his 16-page ruling.

On June 27, the jury awarded $4.7 billion in damages to residential and commercial subscribers after ruling that the NFL violated antitrust laws by distributing out-of-market games on Sunday afternoons on a premium subscription service.

The lawsuit covered 2.4 million residential subscribers and 48,000 businesses in the United States who paid for DirecTV’s package of out-of-market games from the 2011 to 2022 seasons.

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

Because damages can be tripled under federal antitrust laws, the NFL could have been liable for $14,121,779,833.92.

It is not the first time that the NFL has won a legal trial in this case, which has been going on since 2015.

In 2017, U.S. District Judge Beverly Reid O’Connell dismissed the lawsuit and ruled in favor of the NFL because she said that “Sunday Ticket” did not reduce the production of NFL games and that while DirecTV could have priced inflated, this is not “on your account”. itself, constitutes harm to competition” because he had to negotiate with the NFL to move the package forward.

Two years later, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the case.

It is likely that the plaintiffs will appeal again to the 9th Circuit.

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