In Los Angeles, the NFL is in the midst of an expected three-week test to determine whether it allowed DirectTV from 2012 to 2022 to sell broadcasts for out-of-market games through its “Sunday Ticket” package at inflated rates. .
The class action, which represents nearly 2.5 million customers, including individuals and bar owners, argues that the NFL violated antitrust laws that restrict competition in an effort to protect its lucrative gaming deals with Fox and CBS. on Sunday afternoons. It seeks $7.1 billion in damages that could be tripled to more than $21 billion.
DirectTV was the exclusive home of “NFL Sunday Ticket” from the 1994 season through 2022. YouTubeTV took over in 2023. It costs an additional $349 per season above the YouTubeTV fee ($72.99 per month).
Plaintiffs argue that the NFL artificially raised the cost of the Sunday Ticket to profit from desperate, hardcore fans willing to pay anything to see their favorite team or specific out-of-market games, as well as bars that needed to attract customers.
However, in doing so, the league priced out most fans, forcing them to watch any game on local television, the lawsuit states. That offered protection to the NFL’s local broadcast deals with Fox and CBS, which pay the league billions.
Furthermore, by making Sunday Ticket an exclusive offering from DirectTV, which has only 13 million subscribers and required the installation of a satellite dish rather than the much more available basic cable or even a streaming option, they purposely limited the number of potential customers.
The NFL argued that it was a premium service and therefore had a premium price.
“The case is a matter of choice,” NFL attorney Beth Wilkinson told the jury, according to the Associated Press. “This is a valuable and premium product. Think about all the options available to fans? We want as many people as possible to watch the free broadcasts.”
Furthermore, the league has argued at different points throughout the nine years of this lawsuit — it has been moving forward with the legal process since 2015 — that it is protected by antitrust exemptions, meaning if it did what it is accused of doing, it is permitted to do so. it. Even if the league loses this trial, expect appeals all the way to the Supreme Court.
So we’ll see.
The money is huge, even for a sports league that generated $18.6 billion in revenue in 2022 and whose team owners are among the richest people in the world. Presumably, customers will be able to get some money back.
Perhaps most notable, though, is whether this lawsuit could – just possibly – change the way out-of-market games are offered to consumers, not to mention the price.
Whether legal or not, the current system is complicated and lacks options and cost efficiency for many fans.
AppleTV, for example, proposed including Sunday Ticket in its offer at no additional cost. And according to CourthouseNews.com, an email presented as evidence showed that ESPN wanted to charge just $70 for the entire season and offer the option to buy games from just one team.
The NFL turned down both proposals. While other sports leagues—the NBA’s “League Pass” or the NHL’s “Center Ice,” for example—are available through various providers, the NFL preferred to have DirectTV (and later YouTubeTV) pay to be the exclusive supplier of the Sunday Ticket and thus limit the number of fans who used it.
“We don’t want to attract too many people,” New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft said in testimony presented at the trial, according to CourthouseNews.com. “We want to keep it as a premium offering.”
The NFL is an ATM and that may have served the franchise owners’ bottom line well. For fans, however, the possibility of greater access to the product, especially at a lower price and with à la carte orders, would be preferable.
A Philadelphia fan who lives in Chicago, for example, currently needs to subscribe to YouTubeTV for $72.99 per month and then purchase access to all games played on Sunday afternoons through Sunday Ticket ($349). , even if he or she is only interested in watching the Eagles.
Even worse, 12 of Philly’s 17 games in 2024 are scheduled to start on Sunday afternoon (and thus some of the Sunday box office) and it is likely that some of them – namely the two against Dallas – will be broadcast nationally and , therefore, in Chicago. anyway.
It’s possible Eagles fans will pay $349 for just seven or eight games — potentially $50 per broadcast. That doesn’t include the season opener against the Packers, which will air exclusively on Peacock — so another cost.
The best deal would be if fans could buy individual games (say $5.99 or $9.99) on whatever television provider they already have. If they want to watch, they pay to watch. If they can’t or don’t want to buy, they won’t.
Access would jump exponentially. That would be pro-consumer.
Sunday Ticket was created to make the offering unavailable or too expensive for fans, while also offering a plethora of games that most are not interested in watching, so that a fan would just watch whatever their local affiliate is showing. This was done to protect the NFL’s broadcasters – CBS and Fox – and, more to the point, what the NFL could charge its broadcast partners.
A jury might find this problematic. If so, the question is not how much the NFL might have to pay, but how much it might have to overhaul its product for football fans around the world.
