National Football League Sunday Ticket Antitrust Litigation

For years, the NFL and its member teams entered into agreements with DirecTV granting the satellite provider the exclusive right to broadcast out-of-market Sunday afternoon games through the "Sunday Ticket" package. Plaintiffs — including residential subscribers and commercial establishments such as bars and restaurants — alleged this exclusive arrangement constituted an illegal horizontal conspiracy among competing teams to suppress the output of televised games and keep subscription prices artificially high, in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. A jury sided with plaintiffs in June 2024, awarding roughly $4.7 billion in damages, which under antitrust law could be trebled to over $14 billion.

However, in August 2024, U.S. District Judge Philip Gutierrez overturned the jury verdict, granting judgment as a matter of law in favor of the NFL, ruling that plaintiffs had failed to present sufficient evidence of antitrust injury. Plaintiffs promptly appealed to the Ninth Circuit, and the case remains one of the most closely watched sports antitrust battles in U.S. history. A successful appeal could reinstate the massive verdict and fundamentally reshape how professional sports broadcasts are packaged and sold to American consumers.