A federal judge who allowed a class-action lawsuit against the National Football League to proceed to a jury trial has now decided that the jury erred in awarding former DirecTV subscribers more than $4.7 billion as part of the antitrust case.
On Thursday, Judge Philip Gutierrez of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California said the jury’s award of damages was “clearly not supported by the evidence and must be vacated,” adding that the verdict was based on a formula concocted by the jury that was largely rooted in “guesswork and speculation.”
The case stemmed from how the NFL inked its exclusive distribution agreement with DirecTV to distribute Sunday Ticket, which offers games played on CBS and Fox affiliates beyond a subscriber’s local TV market.
The plaintiffs in the case argued that the arrangement amounted to illegal collusion, because it did not allow regional cable providers and other pay TV platforms to distribute NFL Sunday Ticket as well, which could have potentially lowered the price for the package by increasing competition. The NFL disagreed with that assessment, saying DirecTV was one of the few viable options to bring its Sunday Ticket package to national audiences until very recently, when the package moved to YouTube.
