SFC Celebrates Multi-billion dollar Verdict Against NFL

Last Thursday in Los Angeles, a jury for the NFL antitrust lawsuit found that the National Football League (NFL) violated antitrust laws by conspiring to inflate Sunday Ticket prices for 2.4 million residential subscribers and 48,000 commercial subscribers.

These subscribers paid for a package that consisted of out-of-market games from the 2011 through 2022 seasons on DirecTV. The lawsuit came about when the league was inflating the price of its Sunday games package and restricting competition by offering Sunday Ticket only on a satellite provider

During the trial, it was revealed that ESPN proposed to the league that it could take over Sunday Ticket from DirecTV after last season. The service would be priced at $70, and packages for individual teams would be offered. The NFL declined this proposal and went with YouTube TV, where the lowest price is $349, even if an individual has an existing YouTube TV subscription.

The package that the NFL provided was for the entirety of the league, not for one single team. This means that bars and individual subscribers who just wanted to watch one specific team had to pay to watch all of the teams. So, if a residential subscriber just wanted to watch the Ravens, they would have to pay the entire Sunday Ticket package despite not caring about other teams in the league.

The jurors awarded the residential class $4.7 billion in damages and the commercial class $96 million in damages. Each of the 32 member teams will have to pay for the damages they have caused their subscribers, meaning each team could pay as much as $449.6 million.

There will almost certainly be appeals, but in the meantime, Sports Fans Coalition is happy to celebrate the win for sports fans around the country which may make watching football much more affordable.