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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowFor years, American football fans who want to spend Sunday afternoon flipping through games in different cities have had to shell out for the National Football League’s Sunday Ticket broadcast package.
That might soon change.
The subscription package, which exclusively carries out-of-market games that aren’t broadcast on local CBS and Fox channels, is at the heart of a multibillion-dollar antitrust case headed to trial in Los Angeles on Wednesday.
Football fans who sued nine years ago claim that the NFL teams and DirecTV conspired to maintain an illegal monopoly on all out-of-market Sunday afternoon games. The arrangement allegedly allowed the league and the digital TV service to charge higher prices and forced viewers to pay for out-of-market games even when their team wasn’t playing.
The fans are seeking a court order to end what they call the “anticompetitive” agreements. They’re trying to get the NFL to revise its broadcast policies so that teams would distribute games nationwide on cable, satellite or online at lower prices.
The NFL has countered that exclusive TV deals are protected by the Sports Broadcasting Act, which the league said “grants an antitrust exemption for the sale of ‘all or any part’ of broadcasting rights.”
A federal judge ruled in January that the NFL would have to face a trial. U.S. District Judge Philip S. Gutierrez said that the fans had sufficiently alleged the NFL and DirecTV agreements “were designed to maintain market power by reducing the number of telecasts available of the games.”
DirecTV, which has denied wrongdoing, won’t be on trial because it persuaded the judge in 2021 to send customer claims against the company into closed-door arbitration.
The trial got underway in federal court Thursday with the league’s attorney telling jurors that fans have a choice when it comes to watching games and the “Sunday Ticket” package is a premium product.
“The case is about choice. This is a valuable, premium product. Think about all the choices available to fans. We want as many people as possible to watch the free broadcasts,” said Beth Wilkinson, who is representing the NFL.
The class-action case covers more than 2.45 million commercial and residential subscribers from 2012 to 2022 and seeks $7.1 billion in damages. Since damages are tripled under federal rules, the NFL could be liable for up to $21 billion if it loses.
“NFL, Fox, CBS and DirecTV agreed to make an expensive toll road that very few people would be able to afford. Every single competitor in this scheme benefited,” Amanda Bonn, an attorney representing “Sunday Ticket” subscribers, said in her opening remarks Thursday.
DirecTV was the home of “NFL Sunday Ticket” from 1994 until 2022. YouTube will be in the second season this year of a seven-year deal after agreeing to the rights in December 2022.
The NFL contends “Sunday Ticket” is an add-on package for the league’s most-devoted and out-of-town fans, along with noting that all games for local teams are available on broadcast networks.
Steve Bornstein, a former NFL executive and the first president of NFL Network, said during afternoon testimony that “Sunday Ticket” was always set up so that it wouldn’t broadly hamper CBS and Fox’s local ratings.
Contracts between DirecTV and the NFL that were entered into evidence on Thursday showed language that “it will marketed and offered in a manner consistent as a high-quality premium subscription sports offering.”
“The NFL always wanted ‘Sunday Ticket’ to be an additional package. That is how it is was designed since its inception,” Bornstein said.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, a longtime member of the league’s broadcast committee, are expected to testify in a trial that could last up to three weeks.
The trial could bring to light how much YouTube is paying the NFL for “Sunday Ticket” and if it is making money. There also will be documents filed that would show how much networks spend to produce an NFL game.
Bonn showed a 2020 term sheet by Fox Sports demanding the NFL ensure “Sunday Ticket” would be priced above $293.96 per season on streaming platforms in the 11-year rights deal it signed with the NFL in 2021 and that began in 2023. That was the price for the 2020 season.
When the “Sunday Ticket” contract was up for bid in 2022, ESPN wanted to offer the package on its streaming service for $70 per season along with offering a team-by-team product, according to an email shown by Bonn.
This is one of the rare occasions where the NFL has had a high-profile case go to court where league financial matters would become public without settling. In 2021, it settled with St. Louis, St. Louis County and the St. Louis Regional Convention and Sports Complex Authority for $790 million over the relocation of the Rams to Los Angeles.
The “Sunday Ticket” case attracted a large crowd of attorneys and media members to the courtroom of Judge Philip S. Gutierrez. An overflow room was eventually set up 10 minutes into opening statements.
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