N.F.L. Sunday Ticket Verdict Is Thrown Out by Judge
The ruling provides the league with a respite, coming five weeks after a jury in an antitrust case awarded $4.7 billion in damages.
A federal judge overturned the $4.7 billion decision against the National Football League late on Thursday. The judge disregarded expert testimony that the jury had used to assess damages. The NFL had conspired to hike rates for its Sunday Ticket broadcast package.
A day after the N.F.L.’s attorneys asked him to exclude testimony from important witnesses on behalf of plaintiffs representing thousands of customers who purchased Sunday Ticket, a season-long package that included all away games and was offered by DirecTV, the judge, Philip Gutierrez of the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, rendered his decision.
The plaintiffs’ verdict from the jury five weeks prior posed a challenge to the league’s exclusive television package sales approach to broadcasters.
Judge Gutierrez stated in his 16-page ruling that the two economic witnesses for the plaintiffs had employed faulty methodology in their attempts to demonstrate that the Sunday Ticket purchasers were overcharged by the league. The judge ruled that the jury’s damages estimates were invalid because they relied on witness testimony that included unsupported conjecture about the N.F.L. possibly selling individual games and parallels to college football broadcasts.
“The jury’s damages awards were more akin to ‘guesswork or speculation,’ rather than being based on the evidence and reasonable inferences,’ the court finds,” he wrote.
A $14.1 billion decision against the league would have resulted from the jury’s failure to follow Judge Gutierrez’s directions about the calculation of damages, which in antitrust cases like this one are treble.
The league released a statement saying, “We are grateful for today’s ruling in the Sunday Ticket class action lawsuit.” “We think that the NFL’s media distribution model offers our fans a variety of ways to watch the game they love, including free over-the-air television local broadcasts of every game.”
Bill Carmody, an attorney for the plaintiffs, did not immediately return calls or texts.
The NFL declared it was ready to file an appeal of the jury’s decision prior to the judge’s ruling. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit may hear an appeal of the ruling by the plaintiffs.
Roger Goodell, the commissioner of the NFL, Jerry Jones, the owner of the Dallas Cowboys, and Sean McManus, the recently retired chairman of CBS Sports, all testified during the course of the month-long trial.
The NFL broke up with DirecTV during the previous season and paid YouTube up to $2.5 billion a year for the Sunday Ticket package rights.
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