‘Nonsensical’: NFL Begins Process to Get Sunday Ticket Lawsuit Verdict Thrown Out
‘Nonsensical’: NFL Begins Process to Get Sunday Ticket Lawsuit Verdict Thrown Out
In a July 3 filing, the league asked the judge in the case to toss the verdict, or order a new trial.
In many trials, the jury’s ruling is the final word. But for an entity like the NFL who can afford to take advantage of a lengthy, sometimes Byzantine appeals process allowed under American law, an initial jury ruling is hardly the end of the road. That’s why, despite a jury recently finding that the NFL was liable for over $14 billion in damages in a class-action lawsuit first filed in 2015 by NFL Sunday Ticket customers, the league isn’t panicking or rushing to make new arrangements for out-of-market broadcasts this year. Last week, the league made its first attempt to get the ruling thrown out, proving that the case has a long way to go before it’s all said and done.
Key Details:
- On July 3, the league filed a motion with the judge asking for a dismissal of the verdict or a new trial.
- Judge Gutierrez commented multiple times during the trial that he was skeptical of the plaintiffs’ claims.
- The judge has the power to set aside the verdict entirely, but whichever side loses that argument is almost certain to appeal.
The lawsuit against NFL Sunday Ticket represented more than 2 million individuals, as well as nearly 50,000 bars and restaurants. It argued that the league had violated antitrust laws by limiting the number of ways that viewers could access out-of-market games to the high-priced Sunday Ticket service. A jury agreed with that argument and awarded $4.7 billion in damages. Because the suit was an antitrust case, damages tripled to more than $14 billion.
As reported by Front Office Sports, on Wednesday, July 3, the NFL filed its first post-verdict motion, asking Judge Phillip Gutierrez to either set the verdict aside or order a new trial. Judge Gutierrez is empowered to do so if he finds the jury misapplied the law, or if the damages are so outlandish that it would constitute a miscarriage of justice to enforce them.
“The verdict in this case is at once among the largest in American history and also among the least defensible,” NFL attorneys wrote in the motion. “The damages award is nonsensical: It represents the sum total of discounts that class members received—a number hastily calculated by a jury that quickly rejected Plaintiffs’ models. … None of this is appropriate, and the Court’s intervention is needed now.”
The league also stated that Judge Gutierrez’s instructions to the jury were incomplete, and pointed to the fact that one of the jurors was a current Sunday Ticket buyer, both of which justify its request for another trial. Gutierrez will hear the motions in his Los Angeles courtroom on July 31, but comments he made during the trial suggest that he too was not completely sold by the plaintiffs’ arguments.
“The way you have tried this case is far from simple,” Gutierrez said to the plaintiff’s legal team at one point late in the trial. “This case has turned into 25 hours of depositions and gobbledygook… This case has gone in a direction it shouldn’t have gone.”
Whichever side comes out of the end-of-month hearing as the loser is quite likely to appeal the ruling. In short, the NFL Sunday Ticket trial is far from over. If the NFL runs out of options and does not seek a settlement with the plaintiffs, the broadcast landscape of the league could change dramatically, as teams would be allowed to start selling their out-of-market rights individually instead of as a collective.
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.