SFC Files Amicus Brief in NFL Sunday Ticket Antitrust Litigation
SFC filed an amicus brief in the ongoing NFL Sunday Ticket antitrust litigation, arguing that the league abuses its antitrust exemption, causing harm to fans nationwide and that the overturning of the multi-billion dollar verdict is wrong.
“Sports Fans Coalition is outraged that, once again, the NFL may get away with restricting access and charging higher prices while fans are left holding the bag, even after the judge affirmed the jury’s conclusion that the NFL violated antitrust law.”
The NFL has a pattern of restricting fans’ access to games and attempting to justify its monopolistic behavior under the banner of the Sports Broadcasting Act.
The league’s get-out-of-jail-free card is the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961, which, in general, gives the NFL an antitrust exemption for broadcast television.
“the NFL has a history of leaning heavily on the Sports Broadcasting Act to justify its anti-fan and overly restrictive approach to media distribution.”
However, “the SBA actually was a narrowly tailored statutory antitrust exemption designed to make sports more widely available on television, not less.”
The streaming era has only exacerbated the issue. “Congress considered and rejected the application of a statutory antitrust exemption to non-broadcast media.” However, despite that, the NFL has used it to justify its anticompetitive conduct “to non-exempt channels of distribution such as cable television, pay-per-view, and satellite television networks,” and, now, streaming. What does all this mean in practice?
“the NFL’s pooling of rights to out-of-market games and entering into an agreement with DirectTV, a non-broadcast platform, for the exclusive rights to Sunday Ticket, blatantly violates the grand bargain struck by Congress in 1961.”
The district court’s errors, if not reversed, would cause immense harm to sports fans.
“Against the historic backdrop of the NFL’s anti-consumer, monopolistic behavior described above, the district court’s decision to vacate the jury’s findings and damages award can only be compared to a referee throwing a flag on the game-winning touchdown when no one else saw a foul.”
This verdict was historic and would have been the largest ruling ever directly into the pockets of fans. The judge made erroneous factual findings that overturned the verdict and left fans on the sidelines with nothing despite nine years of litigation.
“For example, the notion that there was no possible streaming platform available to consumers in 2011 is unfounded. The sports fans who SFC represents know that streaming of live games was fully mature at that time…
Moreover, the advent of smartphones in the early 2000s, particularly the launch of the Apple iPhone in 2007—four years before 2011—ushered in a new era of media consumption on handheld devices. Fans embraced sports on the ‘small screen’ as a way to keep track of their teams while on the go…
The plethora of sports leagues offering content on streaming platforms today, including NFL games on Amazon Prime and Netflix, reflects that tectonic shift in consumer behavior that was well underway by 2011.”
It is appalling that a judge would completely disregard the jury’s findings and defy the pillar of our justice system.
“That a federal judge would erroneously bypass the jury’s findings in a way that would allow the NFL to get away unscathed, has left millions of American sports fans disillusioned, not only with the people behind professional football, but with the judicial system itself.”
We hope the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals will reverse the decision and grant the full jury award to America’s sports fans and “restore fans’ faith in both” football and the American judicial system.