The NFL lost a class-action lawsuit over Sunday Ticket
The NFL came out on the wrong end of a class-action lawsuit that should be of tremendous interest to fans. The question is whether they’ll ever be forced to pay up — and the bigger question is how it will affect fans moving forward.
According to NBC, the NFL lost a lawsuit concerning its prices for the Sunday Ticket package. They were ordered to pay $4.7 billion to the fans who sued them and an additional $96 million to local bars.
BREAKING: NFL order to pay $4,796,000,000 in damages for the Sunday Ticket case
$4,700,000,000 goes to the residential class per @meghanncuniff
there are just over 2.4M of us residential subscribers in the class action lawsuit
how are you spending your share of that $$?
— Warren Sharp (@SharpFootball) June 27, 2024
The crux of the lawsuit was concerning antitrust violations. Because the NFL forces the vendor (currently YouTube TV) to sell the Sunday Ticket package at one price for the whole thing rather than allowing them to split off specific games, regions, etc., fans and bar owners are forced to pay a significantly inflated price for the package. Many fans just want to watch their local team or a few specific teams or games but must pay for the entire package.
As NBC/Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio had reported, the case was in court this month after dragging up and down the court system for over nine years. This judgment is a win for NFL fans, but it’s likely just the beginning of a process that could drag out for many more years.
The NFL will certainly appeal, and the case could end up before the Supreme Court. As Florio pointed out, the 6-3 conservative majority on the Court is generally pro-big business.
Still, it’s one step closer to potentially cheaper prices for Sunday Ticket. Jets X-Factor will continue to keep Jets fans updated as this case progresses.
Honestly, it’s not the price that bothers me most, it’s that the blackout rules still impact Sunday Ticket Subscribers. The idea of blackout games is so the locals buy tickets to the game in town. Well, by subscribing to the SUNDAY TICKET….TICKET….then in essence I have bought a TICKET to every game and should be able to view all of the games through that medium. As it is now, I have to toggle between inputs etc. to get out of the ticket to the local programming, and that’s just an inconvenience.
The real problem is…I live in SD, I’m from NE, but hate the Patoilets. When I head back at Holiday time, there have been times I’ve been basically blacked out of watching the Jets.
Here’s how: my account is in SD, the app knows that so my local programming is for SD. The local programming in NE is Patoilets…but here’s the BS….if the Jets are in the early slot locally in SD…then it’s blacked out of my Ticket programming.
How can the blackout rules apply and be legal if I am buying a SUNDAY TICKET!!!!!!!! Bottom line, if you pay for the ticket you should get all games and they should bypass any local blackout rules. That’s the real BS.