One of three resolutions likely awaits the NFL Sunday Ticket lawsuit.
The Boring Option: A Cool Win for the NFL. Last week, a jury ruled that the league acted as an illegal monopoly by pooling media rights outside of the individual teams’ market, and as a result, fans (as well as bars) faced limited access at higher prices.
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But as early as July 31, presiding judge Philip Gutierrez could overturn the verdict or modify the decision to allow the league to continue business as usual. If the NFL doesn’t get there before Gutierrez, the league can and will appeal and ask for a stay, which, if granted, would mean that possible payments and changes would be presented as the case moves up the legal ladder, possibly getting ahead of the syoufirst court.
The hard-to-imagine scenario: Congressional intervention. The NFL’s TV strategy has long brought legal scrutiny. After the NFL’s first attempt to sign a league-level agreement with CBS was blocked by a judge on anticompetitive grounds, then-Commissioner Pete Rozelle secured congressional support in the form of the Sports Broadcasting Act (SBA) of 1961. law allowed the NFL and other professional leagues to sell all of their TV rights as a package, as long as the broadcasts were over-the-air (rather than through yet-to-be-invented satellite or paid cable subscriptions).
Jurors appeared to reject the NFL’s defense through the SBA this time. The SBA refers only to over-the-air broadcasts on channels such as CBS and FOX, and not to distribution via satellite (DirecTV) or the internet (YouTube), although league representatives argued that Sunday Ticket resulted from these traditional agreements in ways criticism.
In theory, lawmakers could update the SBA to include these modern methods. But I don’t foresee current Commissioner Roger Goodell betting on a bipartisan agreement in today’s DC if there is another option (despite his family story). Not to mention that the leagues exist the antitrust exemption status has already been questioned by the Senate.
Barring these results, the third possibility is more interesting.
If the NFL is forced to change how it distributes games not broadcast on local and cable TV, it may have the option of following the NBA and MLB’s practices of making an out-of-market service available through multiple providers (such as Amazon Prime Video , YouTube, league-owned apps, etc.). NBA League Pass and MLB.TV are also offered at lower prices than Sunday Ticket, with single-team and single-month options available as well. Notably, NFL action is also cheaper internationally through the Game Pass product.
However, other sports deals are reportedly structured around leagues receiving a share of subscriber revenue rather than an upfront fee. YouTube is estimated to pay the NFL $2 billion annually for exclusive rights to Sunday Ticket.
Sunday Ticket remains relatively inaccessible in the United States, the plaintiffs argued, because the NFL restricts access to the market to increase the money it receives for CBS and Fox games. they are capable of transmitting (about $4.3 billion annually between the two). Those networks and the league, in turn, have said that local exclusivity is what allows them to invest so much in the award-winning coverage, which makes up the bulk of the most-watched TV shows each year, and keep the games available for free. seasons.
It remains to be seen what effect a cheaper Sunday Ticket product would have on local ratings (recognizing that new Sunday Ticket viewers would still be watching CBS and Fox productions but not those served to them on traditional TV), but it would likely be less valuable to local advertising buyers).
In a worst-case scenario for CBS and Fox’s NFL dominance, the ongoing legal dispute could theoretically end with a reversion to the status quo of the 1950s, when individual teams handled their own TV negotiations.
In that world, we could see non-nationally televised Cowboys games — yes, there are still some of those — available via Max, for example, or Steelers games streaming on Netflix. In baseball, we’ve already seen Amazon invest in a Yankees-only package, although for now that’s limited to the team’s regional TV territory.
The entire concept of differentiating viewing access based on a fan’s physical location was already outdated before this case came to light. So-called “geoblocking” strategies are a vestige of pre-digital times. Now, regional sports networks face extinction as leagues consider all-in-one streaming products, like Apple’s MLS Season Pass, that don’t separate nearby viewers from those further away. However, at least one expert gestured regarding the legal risks these packages could face based on the outcome of the NFL lawsuit. Certainly some coordination between franchises is necessary to hold and televise a sporting event; The question is how much would it be? irrational.
Assuming YouTube doesn’t lose access to the games it currently streams, giving up exclusive privileges might not be so bad for the streaming giant in a new world order. As a result, the service could be freed up to offer cheaper and more flexible packages to fans, while competing with other platforms based on customer experience.
This is a battle that YouTube wins regularly. The app controls about 10% of TV time, according to Nielsen, more than any distributor besides Disney, to say nothing of its mobile supremacy. It is now regularly referred to as a “rating giant” and even possibly “the most powerful media platform in human history.”
If this sounds familiar, know that yes, YouTube has also faced calls for its own antitrust investigation.
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