Did the NFL conspire to pressure its biggest fans by raising the price of DirecTV's Sunday Ticket package so that subscribers would be forced to pay top dollar to watch the full range of Sunday games?
That's what plaintiffs contend in a class-action lawsuit that began Thursday in federal court in Los Angeles, the culmination of a nine-year legal odyssey. The case began in 2015 when a San Francisco pub called the Mucky Duck filed a complaint about how the league handles its out-of-market broadcasts.
The allegation is that the NFL colluded with network partners CBS and Fox, along with DirecTV, and controlled the price of Sunday Ticket to ensure it remained expensive, violating antitrust law.
The class action lawsuit was filed on behalf of more than 2.4 million residential subscribers and more than 48,000 restaurants, bars and other commercial establishments that show the games.
Among those expected to testify in person or virtually are NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft.
A fortune is at stake. Plaintiffs estimate $7 billion in damages for the period from 2011 to 2022, and those damages are tripled in antitrust cases. That $21 billion is enough to buy an entire four-team division.
In her opening statement Thursday, Amanda Bonn, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said the case was not an attack on the right of companies to make money but “the dark side of the NFL, what happens behind the shield.”
The NFL argues that it did not control prices and DirecTV did, often giving away the product to attract subscribers. The league maintains it has the most fan-friendly sports media model, with all home games available on broadcast television.
If you're a Rams or Chargers fan and live in the Los Angeles market, you can watch all of those games for free, even those that are only available in other parts of the country through streaming services.
Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is among those expected to testify during a class-action lawsuit filed by Sunday Ticket subscribers against the NFL.
(George Walker IV / Associated Press)
The Sunday Ticket package, now sold through YouTube TV, allows subscribers to access broadcasts of all out-of-market Sunday games, which air on CBS and Fox. They are not special broadcasts, but identical to what people see in those different national markets. According to league estimates, just 3% of fans subscribe to Sunday Ticket, which this season costs $349 without discounts or promotions.
“It's a valuable, premium product, and the prices were reasonable,” NFL representative Beth Wilkinson said in her opening remarks. “Fans do not have to buy Sunday Ticket. … The league wants as many people as possible to watch the free broadcasts.”
Wilkinson said that after promotions and giveaways, the average Sunday Ticket price during the period in question was $102.70 per season.
The plaintiffs say that instead of making fans pay for access to each game, the league should have provided to the letter options so subscribers could focus on a specific team or game. For example, one of the two residential plaintiffs lives in the Bay Area and just wanted to watch his beloved New Orleans Saints. He left Sunday Ticket because paying for each game was too expensive.
There is no denying the popularity of the NFL on television. Of the 100 most-watched shows last year, 93 of them were NFL games.
In 1961, Congress passed the Sports Broadcasting Act, which provided a limited antitrust exemption to professional football, basketball, baseball, and hockey leagues, allowing individual teams in those leagues to band together to negotiate national television contracts. The caveat: those games had to be broadcast on open television. That was long before the concept of premium cable channels and certainly streaming broadcasts.
Things are different north of the border. In Canada, there are several Sunday Ticket distributors and the same product is available for $149 per season. The plaintiffs say the NFL rejected the idea of ESPN taking over the package and selling it to subscribers for $70, or of having a system similar to college football in which each of the NFL's 32 teams negotiates its own transmission agreement.
The NFL maintains that the idea of each team reaching its own agreement would be chaotic. Imagine how much the Green Bay Packers could dominate, for example, compared to the Jacksonville Jaguars. In the league's view, this would erode the revenue sharing system and competitive balance.
