Ron Chenoy, USA TODAY NETWORK
Due to a recent ruling in the ‘Sunday Ticket’ case, the NFL has violated antitrust laws and is on the hook for penalties in the billions of dollars.
An 8-person jury ruled in favor of the plaintiffs this past Thursday and though the league intends to appeal the decision, $14.39 billion in damages would be split amongst the 32 NFL teams. That means that the Denver Broncos would be left to pay approximately $449.6 million.
Ouch.
The league released a statement following the ruling:
“We are disappointed with the jury’s verdict today in the NFL Sunday Ticket class action lawsuit. We continue to believe that our media distribution strategy, which features all NFL games broadcast on free over-the-air television in the markets of the participating teams and national distribution of our most popular games, supplemented 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.
We will certainly contest this decision as we believe that the class action claims in this case are baseless and without merit. We thank the jury for their time and service and for the guidance and oversight from Judge [Philip] Gutierrez throughout the trial.”
The NFL Sunday Ticket settlement is around $4,000 to 5,000 a customer per report 💵💲
— NFL Rumors (@nflrums) June 29, 2024
Post-trial motions will be heard at the end of July. If the verdict is not set aside, the league will have to file an appeal with the Ninth Circuit Court.
It remains to be seen what will become of NFL Sunday Ticket, which was part of the DirecTV family from 1994-2022 and is now part of YouTube TV. But if the league is unsuccessful in its appeal, there will be changes to that package.
Author(s)
Travis Wakeman has been covering the NFL since 2012 when he started with Bleacher Report. After reporting about the Broncos there until 2016, he joined the FanSided network as a site expert covering the San Diego/Los Angeles Chargers while simultaneously covering the Broncos at Broncos Wire when that site launched. He then took over the Broncos site at FanSided in March 2020 and covered the team there until spring of 2024.
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