NFL faces constant legal exposure to Sunday Ticket antitrust violations

When the United States Supreme Court decided The Alston Affair in June 2021, the NCAA moved to limit potential liability arising from the long-standing ban on athletes making money from names, images and likenesses by opening the NIL floodgates just 10 days later. This was smart, because the Alston case (and particularly Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s concurring opinion) clearly showed that many of the NCAA’s rules violated antitrust laws.

The NFL could be forced to make similar decisions following Thursday’s verdict in the Sunday Ticket case.

The class action lawsuit does not cover the 2023 season (on YouTube TV), nor the 2024 season, nor any future season. There is already a new class action lawsuit hidden in plain sight regarding the price of the Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV in 2023. It will also apply to 2024, unless there is a radical change to the current price.

For the NFL, a major decision must be made immediately. Will the league amend Sunday Ticket in response to the verdict, or will the league let it go through the appeals process — knowing that a potential loss will result in several more years of potential liability?

Ideally, the league should realize that while the NFL’s Sunday Ticket approach may or may not violate antitrust laws, it is disrespecting consumers by forcing them to pay too much for the games they want. see. Even if the NFL never has to pay a dime after Thursday’s verdict, the league has been exposed for its greed, its manipulation, its refusal to allow fans to cheaply go to see the games they want to see .

They can claim that they are committed to making choices. The truth is that they have historically made such expensive choices that they knew many fans would choose to settle for the games available on their local CBS or Fox affiliates, even if they would rather watch another game.

All fans should hope that the league sees yesterday’s verdict as a wake-up call that leads the league to decide to make all games accessible to all fans, without attaching a markup aimed at bringing most of them to settle for what they can get instead of what they really want.