NFL “Considering Our Options” As New ‘Sunday Ticket’ Trial Ordered; Previous Verdict Scored $4.7B Payout

To paraphrase Super Bowl LXI halftime show headliner Jay Z, the NFL may or may not have 99 problems but a new trial over the long alleged and much litigated Sunday Ticket antitrust violation is now one.

Not that the Roger Goodell-led league are taking this new play on the chin.

“We are disappointed by today’s decision in the NFL Sunday Ticket appeal, the latest development in this case which has been ongoing now for over 11 years – and now promises to go on even longer,” a NFL spokesperson told Deadline soon after the new ruling came down.

A panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit wrote today: “We conclude that the district court abused its discretion by excluding the subscriber’s expert testimony.” This revives the case the NFL hoped was dead and perviously saw a hardcore $4.7 billion verdict against the leagure a couple of years ago.

“By inquiring beyond the reliability of the expert’s method and the sufficiency of their data, the district court exceeded its gatekeeping role under Federal Rule of Evidence 702,” Judge Anthony Johnstone wrote in a 64-page opinion. “But the district court did not abuse its discretion in finding that the jury improperly considered the expert testimony in its damages award. Because the judgment rested on the Rule 702 exclusions, we reversed that decision, affirmed the new trial order, and remanded instructions to reinstate the jury’s liability verdict and for a new trial on damages.”

Boom! In the end zone! In what could be a very expensive and certainly drawn out end zone for the NFL.

The big flex by the San Francisco based three-judge appeals court panel comes over two years after U.S. District Court Judge Philip S. Gutierrez threw aside a jury’s $4.7 billion judgment against the 32-team leagure over the alleged artificially inflated cost to consumers of its prized NFL Sunday Ticket subscriptions.

Initially filed in 2015, the class action covers 2.4 million residential subscribers and 48,000 businesses such as bars and restaurants who forked out cash out-of-market games over the 2011 to 2022 NFL seasons on DirecTV. Back in August 2024, Judge Gutierrez ruled the experts who offered testimony and analysis for the class action’s plaintiffs employed flawedeconomic models.

Today, after the much anticipated and honestly not that surprising result, the NFL were dusting off the old playbook and getting ready to go back on the field in the price-fixing game of sorts.

“We continue to believe that our media distribution strategy – which features 100 percent of NFL games broadcast on free over-the-air television in the markets of the participating teams and national distribution of our most popular games, supplemented by many additional choices including RedZone, Sunday Ticket and NFL Plus – is by far the most fan-friendly distribution model in all of sports and entertainment,” that league spokesperson added. “We appreciate the panel’s attention to this case, and we will be considering our options for seeking further appellate review of today’s decision.”

See ya all in court, again and again.

BTW – if you don’t know, Sunday Ticket isn’t even on DirecTV anymore. As all the litigation was going on, the NFL inked a seven-year, $14 billion deal with YouTube TV in 2023, putting Sunday Ticket on streaming.