Federal Judge Rules in Favor of NFL, Overturning $4.7B ‘Sunday Ticket’ Jury Verdict – One America News Network
OAN Staff James Meyers
9:43 AM – Friday, August 2, 2024
The NFL has more reasons to be excited as the season is just over a month away from kicking off.
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Federal District Judge Philip Gutierrez overturned a previous ruling that forced the NFL to pay residential and commercial “Sunday Ticket” subscribers $4.7 billion for violating antitrust laws with the out-of-market package.
Judge Gutierrez penned a 16-page ruling on why he made the shocking decison that takes the NFL off the hook for enormous damages.
“The Court finds that the jury’s damages awards were not based on the ‘evidence and reasonable inferences’ but instead were more akin to ‘guesswork or speculation,’” the judge said in his ruling.
“Plaintiffs must prove the reasonableness of each of the assumptions upon which the damages calculation is based,” Judge Gutierrez had previously said in June, according to the Associated Press.
However, it has not been made clear whether this means there would be a different dollar figure assigned to the antitrust violations, or possibly a new trial altogether.
NFL Sunday Ticket was available exclusively on DirecTV until last season, when it moved exclusively to YouTube TV.
The original ruling would have been split amongst 2.4 million residential subscribers and 48,000 commercial subscribers who had NFL Sunday Ticket from the 2011 through 2022 seasons.
“Today we asked the district court to set aside the jury’s verdict in this case, which is contrary to the law and unsupported by the evidence presented at trial,” the NFL said in a statement after the prior ruling.
Under antitrust law, the jury award could have increased to around $14 billion, which is more than the NFL takes in annually in U.S. broadcast and streaming revenue.
“We are grateful for today’s ruling in the Sunday Ticket class action lawsuit,” the NFL said in a statement. “We believe that the NFL’s media distribution model provides our fans with an array of options to follow the game they love, including local broadcasts of every single game on free over-the-air television. We thank Judge Gutierrez for his time and attention to this case and look forward to an exciting 2024 NFL season.”
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