The NFL Super Bowl kicks off in 2024.
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The National Football League has been ordered to pay about $4.7 billion after a jury found its broadcast model violated antitrust laws.
On Thursday, a Los Angeles jury ruled in favor of fans who claimed they paid too much for the NFL Sunday Ticket. The decision, which came after less than a full day of deliberations, could force the league to change its broadcast model that has made it the most popular sports league in the country.
The eight-year-old legal battle centered on allegations that the league and its 32 teams conspired in violation of antitrust laws to allow the NFL to enter into exclusive deals with broadcast partners for the right to broadcast out-of-market matches.
In a statement, an NFL spokesperson said the verdict will be appealed. “We continue to believe that our media distribution strategy, which includes broadcasting every NFL game on free over-the-air television in participating teams’ markets and national distribution of our most popular games, complemented by many additional choices including RedZone, Sunday Ticket and NFL+, is by far the most fan-friendly distribution model in all of sports and entertainment,” the statement continued.
Damages can be tripled following an antitrust judgment, meaning the NFL could be on the hook for nearly $15 billion. The league is expected to overturn the verdict. If the judge upholds the decision, the court will consider structural changes to the Sunday Ticket. Appeals to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit will follow.
In 2015, NFL fans filed a class-action lawsuit. They pointed out a major difference in how the NFL approaches broadcasts compared to the other four professional sports leagues: Viewers who want to watch games that aren’t broadcast locally must purchase the premium Sunday Ticket plan. That means Kansas City Chiefs fans living in Los Angeles must pay hundreds of dollars a year at allegedly inflated prices to watch their favorite team play. There’s no plan that allows them to do that. just watch Chiefs games.
The NFL defense has been multi-dimensional. During her opening statements, NFL attorney Beth Wilkinson highlighted the league’s immense popularity, saying viewers are more than happy with its offerings, which she said include NFL RedZone and NFL+.
“The NFL is trying to bring as much football as possible to as many fans as possible. Why?” Wilkinson asked. “Because it creates a big fan base. That’s why America’s favorite sport is football. They want to bring it to as many people as possible at the lowest cost possible.”
The league also highlighted other so-called pro-competitive effects justifying the pooling of broadcast rights for its teams, including the possibility for CBS and Fox to broadcast local matches for free. Other leagues, the NFL argued, don’t do this to the detriment of their fans.
Under the league’s deal with CBS and Fox, there is a single telecast for each Sunday afternoon NFL game, with the networks in turn granted the exclusive right to broadcast a limited number of matches via free live television in local markets. No more than two matches may be broadcast at the same time in any given local market. This effectively gives networks exclusive rights to certain games.
Consumers argued that the NFL engaged in a price-fixing scheme with DirecTV. In a 2012 email, Robert Stecklow, DirecTV’s former director of sports strategy, wrote to an NFL executive: “Let’s make a decision in the room” and that the league “has agreed to 100 percent on prices every year in a meeting just like yesterday.” Amanda Bonn, a consumer attorney, said the correspondence indicates the NFL gets advance notice of prices from DirecTV for Sunday Ticket every year. “It’s of price fixing,” she said during her opening speech. “It’s illegal.”
In another message from Alex Kaplan, DirecTV’s chief revenue and product officer, to an AT&T executive as the two companies considered a merger that threatened the league’s ability to control pricing, the executive wrote, “I wanted to lower the price” of Sunday Ticket, but the NFL rejected the request because the league “viewed their product as a premium offering” and “lowering the price would send the message that their product needs help.”
DirectTV was not a defendant in the lawsuit, with a judge in 2021 sending claims against the company to arbitration.
Consumer lawyers sought nearly $7 billion in damages. The NFL has denied any wrongdoing.
News Source : www.hollywoodreporter.com
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