Apple Asks Judge in NFL Sunday Ticket Antitrust Lawsuit to Deny Subpoena Compelling it to Turn Over Information
The plaintiffs in the NFL Sunday Ticket antitrust suit will have to get along without Apple’s help, unless the judge in the case decides to sustain the subpoena.
Apple has no interest in exposing internal corporate data to the public. That should come as a surprise to no one who follows the company and its doings, but the plaintiffs in the ongoing lawsuit against the NFL over alleged antitrust violations by NFL Sunday Ticket will be disappointed to hear that Apple won’t comply with a subpoena in the case unless ordered by the judge.
- The lawsuit against the NFL was first filed in February. It alleges that the NFL unlawfully limited the number of games shown outside Sunday Ticket while driving up the price of the service.
- Apple has been subpoenaed by the plaintiffs to reveal information from its negotiations with the league over possibly acquiring Sunday Ticket’s rights in 2022.
- The company is not willing to hand over that information without being compelled, saying the information sought is “irrelevant” and the testimony required by senior executive Eddy Cue would be “unduly burdensome.”
Why is Apple Being Subpoenaed in the First Place?
The lawsuit which plaintiffs filed against the NFL in February did not name Apple as a co-defendant. The class-action suit alleges that the NFL is violating anti-trust laws by limiting the number of games available outside the NFL Sunday Ticket package, giving fans no other way to watch those games while simultaneously jacking up the price of Sunday Ticket. In 2023, fans who don’t wish to subscribe to YouTube TV must pay $449 per season for the out-of-market games package.
Because Apple was deep in negotiations with the league over the rights to Sunday Ticket before it eventually ended up with YouTube TV, however, the plaintiffs feel it has information material to their case. According to reporting from Reuters, Apple has asked the judge presiding over the suit to reject a subpoena from the plaintiffs for that information.
According to Apple, the data the plaintiffs are seeking is “irrelevant, disproportionate, and competitively sensitive.” In addition, any attempt to compel senior Apple executive Eddy Cue to testify about Apple’s negotiations with the NFL would be “unduly burdensome.”
“Plaintiffs cannot show that Mr. Cue has unique, non-duplicative knowledge of the facts in the underlying litigation,” Apple’s filing with the court reads.
Google’s Not Out of the Woods, Either
The judge has yet to rule on Apple’s subpoena request, but the company should feel thankful that it didn’t land the Sunday Ticket rights, which would further enmesh it in this case. Google, which did eventually get Sunday Ticket for its live TV streaming service YouTube TV, has been sued by the plaintiffs for more information instead of simply subpoenaed.
Like Apple, Google has resisted all attempts to compel more information regarding its discussions with the NFL over Sunday Ticket. The league has asked for a summary judgment in the suit that would bring an end to the proceedings, but that request was first reported in August, so it seems the judge wasn’t interested in that outcome.
A recent report indicates that thus far in 2023, YouTube TV has managed to accrue just 1.3 million subscribers for NFL Sunday Ticket. That’s a far cry from what analysts suggest the company needs to make the service profitable and another reason the league is eager to move on from this distracting lawsuit.
It would be a surprise to see the antitrust argument win out in this case, and stonewalling from Google and Apple won’t help the plaintiffs’ cause. Still, all observers can do now is watch the case wind its way through the legal system.
NFL Sunday Ticket
NFL Sunday Ticket is a subscription video streaming service that allows football fans to watch every live out-of-market NFL game on Sunday afternoons on YouTube or YouTube TV.