After just two days of deliberation, the jury in the NFL “Sunday Ticket” trial has determined that the NFL violated antitrust laws.
As part of making “Sunday Ticket” accessible on only DirecTV and thus monopolizing prices, the jury found that the league must pay fans around $4.7 billion, plus $96 million to bars that utilized the exclusive service to display games.
In a statement released, the NFL indicated it would appeal the decision, calling it “baseless and without merit.”
“We are disappointed with the jury’s verdict today in the NFL Sunday Ticket class action lawsuit,” the league said. “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 Gutierrez throughout the trial.”
