Appeals court revives $4.7 billion NFL verdict, could reach $14.1 billion

A federal appeals court on Friday revived a $4.7 billion antitrust verdict against the NFL, putting back before a jury a claim that the league overcharged for its "Sunday Ticket" package and restricted how it was sold.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the district court in Los Angeles to reinstate the jury's verdict and hold a new trial on damages. The ruling came more than two years after U.S. District Judge Philip Gutierrez threw out the award in July 2024, one month after it was issued, finding that the testimony of two expert witnesses for the subscribers should have been excluded because their methodologies were flawed.

A three-judge panel disagreed with that exclusion. "Opinions are neither unfounded nor unreliable merely because they are impeachable," Judge Anthony D. Johnstone wrote in the opinion, adding that such questions are for a jury to weigh and that a verdict stands unless it is clearly unsupported by the evidence. The panel did find that the jury departed from Gutierrez's instructions in calculating damages and instead produced figures based on guesswork or speculation.

The case covers 2.4 million residential subscribers and 48,000 businesses that paid for the package on DirecTV for out-of-market games from the 2011 through 2022 seasons. The plaintiffs alleged the NFL set an inflated price and limited distribution to a single satellite provider. The jury in June 2024 returned $4,610,331,671.74 for the residential class and $96,928,272.90 for the commercial class. Because federal antitrust law allows trebling, total exposure could reach $14,121,779,833.92.

Attorneys for both sides said they are reviewing the ruling. The NFL said in a statement that it continues to believe its media distribution strategy, which includes free over-the-air broadcasts of games in participating teams' markets, is the most fan-friendly model in sports and entertainment.

The dispute began in 2015 with a suit filed by the Mucky Duck sports bar in San Francisco. A district judge dismissed it in 2017, the 9th Circuit reinstated it two years later, and Gutierrez certified it as a class action in 2023.

The package moved to YouTube in 2023 under a seven-year agreement.