Key Points
- A federal appeals court reinstated a jury’s finding that the NFL violated antitrust laws through its Sunday Ticket television distribution arrangements.
- The Ninth Circuit reversed a lower court ruling that had overturned a $4.7 billion verdict against the NFL in 2024; the appeals court ordered a new trial to determine damages, leaving the NFL’s financial liability unresolved.
- The lawsuit accused the NFL of restricting competition and charging inflated prices for out-of-market football games sold through DIRECTV.
A federal appeals court on Friday reinstated a jury’s finding that the National Football League (NFL) violated federal antitrust laws through its Sunday Ticket television distribution agreements, reversing a lower court decision that had overturned a nearly $4.7 billion verdict against the league two years ago.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that a federal judge in Los Angeles improperly excluded expert testimony used by residential and commercial subscribers to establish that the NFL’s television distribution arrangements resulted in higher subscription prices.
The three-judge panel, however, agreed that the jury had incorrectly calculated damages and ordered a new trial to determine how much the NFL should pay.
The ruling revives a significant legal challenge to the NFL’s longtime practice of selling exclusive television rights to out-of-market games, which were carried by DIRECTV for nearly three decades before moving to Google’s YouTube in 2023.
The lawsuit, filed in 2015, accused the NFL and DIRECTV of restricting competition by requiring consumers and commercial establishments to purchase a single package to watch Sunday afternoon games unavailable through local CBS and Fox affiliates. The plaintiffs in the case argued that the arrangement prevented competing distributors from offering individual games or alternative packages, allowing the league to charge subscribers more than they otherwise would have paid.
Following a monthlong trial in 2024, a federal jury awarded approximately $4.6 billion to residential subscribers and another $96 million to commercial customers, including bars and restaurants. The award could have increased to more than $14 billion under federal antitrust law, which allows courts to triple damages awarded to plaintiffs.
U.S. District Judge Philip Gutierrez subsequently overturned the verdict, ruling that economic experts retained by the plaintiffs had relied on unreliable assumptions and flawed calculations to estimate how much subscribers were overcharged.
In Friday’s decision, the Ninth Circuit determined that Gutierrez had exceeded his authority by excluding the expert testimony after the jury had already considered it.
The appeals court said questions about the credibility of the experts’ conclusions should have been left to jurors, rather than used to dismiss the plaintiffs’ claims. However, the panel also found sufficient grounds to reject the original damages award because the jury had not properly applied the evidence when calculating the amount owed, the order said.
The decision on Friday restores the jury’s finding of antitrust liability but does not reinstate the $4.7 billion award, leaving the amount of any financial judgment to be determined in further proceedings. A lower court will be tasked with making that determination.
The NFL has yet to release a public comment on the matter. The league and other defendants in the case have the option to appeal the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court; it isn’t clear if they will do so.
