Sunday Ticket trial, with up to $21 billion at issue, gets started

The trial has gotten started. The final bill could be an amount the NFL would have to dig deep to pay.

Via the Associated Press, opening statements happened Thursday in the massive antitrust class action against the NFL over the Sunday Ticket package.

The plaintiffs contend that the NFL, DirecTV, CBS, and Fox worked together to make Sunday Ticket more expensive than it had to be. The NFL, represented by Beth Wilkinson (whose investigation of the Commanders greased the skids for Dan Snyder’s exit) claims it’s all about consumers having full access to content.

“The case is about choice,” Wilkinson told the jury. “This is a valuable, premium product. Think about all the choices available to fans. We want as many people as possible to watch the free broadcasts.”

That’s the issue, in a nutshell. The NFL wants Sunday Ticket to carry a price point that strikes the balance between generating significant revenue for its “premium product” while not diluting the audiences who would otherwise watch the Sunday afternoon games on their local network affiliates.

During opening statements, attorney Amanda Bonn showed jurors a 2020 term sheet from Fox, in which the company asked the NFL to ensure that Sunday Ticket would be priced above $293.96 (the Sunday Ticket fee in 2020) during the 11-year term that began in 2023.

Steve Bornstein, the former head of NFL Network, testified on Thursday that Sunday Ticket was always intended to not impact the ratings of networks that paid handsomely for over-the-air broadcast rights in the various markets.

The Wall Street Journal recently took a closer look at what this case could mean. With up to $7 billion in damages, and given that the antitrust law requires damages to be tripled, the league could be looking at a $21 billion judgment, or $656.25 million per team.

The case started in 2015, when the San Francisco pub known as the Mucky Duck filed a legal challenge to the league’s out-of-market broadcast arrangements. It has morphed into an…

Source link : https://finance.yahoo.com/news/sunday-ticket-trial-21-billion-142052944.html

Author : ProFootball Talk on NBC Sports

Publish date : 2024-06-07 14:20:52

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