Posted on 06/27/2024 3:09:42 PM PDT by NohSpinZone
LOS ANGELES -- A jury in U.S. District Court ruled Thursday that the NFL violated antitrust laws in distributing out-of-market Sunday afternoon games on a premium subscription service and has awarded more than $4.7 billion in damages.
The jury ordered the league to pay $4.7 billion in damages to the residential class and $96 million in damages to the commercial class.
The NFL said in a statement that it will appeal the verdict.
"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," the league said.
"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."
Post-trial motions will be heard July 31, including one to set aside the verdict. If the verdict isn't set aside, the NFL will appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court.
The lawsuit covered 2.4 million residential subscribers and 48,000 businesses who paid for the package of out-of-market games from the 2011 through 2022 seasons on DirecTV. The lawsuit claimed the league broke antitrust laws by selling its package of Sunday games at an inflated price. The subscribers also say the league restricted competition by offering "Sunday Ticket" only on a satellite provider.
(Excerpt) Read more at espn.com ...
I don’t exactly know what this particular case is about, but yes I agree they made a big mistake breaking the various games for next year across three or four different streaming services. People are sick of paying for all these services. I think it will kill ratings and interest in the game overall.
Complete and utter rip-off
Just watch The Red Zone
Yep. And Scott Hanson is a good Christian dude to boot.
Not only that but now it's catered to gamblers.
So there's no reason for you to follow the game unless you're a gambler.
Amazon, YouTube, Peacock, what else am I missing?
And if you live in the market area if a team that is shown locally.
Other than watching your team while living somewhere else, tough.
I live in TN. Why do I want to watch a Giants vs Cowboys game?
Locally i get 3 to 4 Sunday afternoon games. Sunday night and Monday night are nationwide. That’s enough for me.
I don’t remember the details but you named three. I said three or four. Either way it’s crazy to break them up. Will people even know which game is on which service and when?
I agree, a lot of it is catering to gambling which is dreadful. They should not even allow gambling services advertising during the games. People will simply lose faith in the integrity of games, referee calls, “bad throws” and “missed kicks”.
Netflix for Christmas Day/Night games. That’s new this year.
Yeah the multiple services to be able to watch any game ticked me off and all I could do about it was yell FU Goodell!
For us wandering minstrels I don’t get it. Gotta go home to watch my team. 506 sports on Wednesdays will tell us who’s outta luck. Makes no sense.
There have been 20+ years I have lived outside Pittsburgh and had to miss Steelers games. Many years I was renting and could not get a satellite dish installed, now I won’t subscribe to YouTube.
The NHL, NBA and MLB all have single team and league packages you can stream without further subscription to satellite or a streaming bundle.
I wish nothing but ill will to the NFL for how they have handled out of market games the past 30 years. This award is not enough.
Amen. I refuse to purchase DirectTV just for this even though I would have loved to watch Steelers game (hello, fellow fan) myself. I made do. NFL is behind the times on this.
That's not a good move for Netflix. NFL is expensive. Better off making quality movies.
Apple
What constitutes am inflated price. Either you are willing to pay for the package or you aren’t.
Is somebody holding a gun to the “fans” head?
Bkm
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