Late last week, a jury in U.S. District Court determined that the NFL had violated antitrust laws in distributing out-of-market Sunday afternoon games on DirecTV’s “Sunday Ticket.”
As part of the ruling, the jury awarded $4.7 billion in damages to 2.4 million residential subscribers and $96 million in damages to 48,000 businesses.
“We are disappointed with the jury’s verdict today in the NFL Sunday Ticket class action lawsuit,” the NFL said in a statement. “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 NFL said in a statement.
“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 called the ruling “excessive and unreasonable” and it plans to appeal to Judge Gutierrez. If the judge does not vacate the ruling, the league plans to appeal to the Ninth Circuit, reports Sportico.
Should those appeals all fail, the nearly $4.8 billion in total damages will be split among the 32 NFL teams, meaning each, including the New York Giants, would be obligated to pay out $449.6 million each.
Why such a large number?
The New York Times reports that antitrust cases like this generally result in tripled damages by law, bringing the potential total to over $14 billion (up from the $4.8 billion).
Post-trial motions will begin on Wednesday, July 31.
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