A Federal Judge said Wednesday the jury didn’t follow the law when awarding a $4.7 billion verdict in the NFL Sunday Ticket case.
On Thursday, Judge Philip Gutierrez overturned the $4.7 judgment.
Wow, the judge just threw out the jury’s $4.7 billion “NFL Sunday Ticket” verdict. Finds the plaintiff’s economics experts to be unreliable and the jury’s award to be based not on the “evidence and reasonable inferences” but instead “guesswork or speculation.”
— Eriq Gardner ✍️ (@eriqgardner) August 1, 2024
Wow. Judge grants NFL motion for judgment as a matter of law, meaning judge has ruled for NFL, which a jury found liable and said caused $4.7 billion in damages. Story to come soon on @Sportico (i.e., I’m about to write it). I discussed this possibility: https://t.co/RkMXOYisFZ.
— Michael McCann (@McCannSportsLaw) August 1, 2024
“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.”
From previous information:
U.S. District Judge Philip Gutierrez didn’t issue a ruling during the hearing in downtown Los Angeles on the NFL’s motion for judgment as a matter of law or for a new trial. However, he agreed with the league that the jury’s damages award wasn’t supported by the evidence.
Per Courthousenews.com:
U.S. District Judge Philip Gutierrez didn’t issue a ruling during the hearing in downtown Los Angeles on the NFL’s motion for judgment as a matter of law or for a new trial. However, he agreed with the league that the jury’s damages award wasn’t supported by the evidence.
The jury calculated the precise amount of damages to be $4,707,259,944.62 using a theory that had never been presented during the trial, the judge said.
“There’s no doubt about what they did,” Gutierrez said. “They didn’t follow the instructions.”
In short, the complication arose from the mathematics the jury used in computing the amount of damages.
The jury’s amount did not conform to the college football model ($7.01 billion) by Daniel Rascher, an economist at the University of San Francisco, or the multiple-distributor model ($3.48 billion) by John Zona, who was an expert witness in the case.
Instead, the jury used the 2021 list price of about $294 and subtracted $102.74, the average price actually paid by residential “Sunday Ticket” subscribers. The jury then used $191.26, which it considered as the “overcharge,” and multiplied that by the number of subscribers to come up with the damages amount.
“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.” an NFL statement read. “The NFL’s media distribution model is the most fan friendly in sports, with all games broadcast locally on free over-the-air television in addition to many other choices available to fans who want even more access to NFL content. We will continue to pursue all avenues in defense of the claims brought in this case.”