NFL Sunday Ticket Trial Going Well for League

To the surprise of many, the NFL didn’t settle an antitrust class action lawsuit over the Sunday Ticket and is instead defending league broadcasting practices in a trial currently taking place in a Los Angeles federal district court.

Impressions from the courtroom suggest the league’s gamble is paying off.

More from Sportico.com

According to journalists attending the trial, U.S. District Judge Philip Gutierrez has repeatedly expressed skepticism about the plaintiffs’ case. He could even grant a motion for judgment as a matter of law. Before the case goes to the jury, a judge can conclude no reasonable jury could reach a different conclusion.

Per the The Wall Street Journal’s Joe Flint, Gutierrez told the plaintiffs’ attorneys they “really have nothing” and are saddled by a “total disconnect” between their arguments and what has been expressed during the trial. Joe Reedy of the Associated Press reported Gutierrez criticizing the plaintiffs’ attempt to connect the Dallas Cowboys seeking licensing independence from the NFL for merchandise and sponsorships in the 1990s with TV broadcast rights.

As explained more fully in Sportico’s trial preview, the core antitrust question presented by In Re: NFL’s “Sunday Ticket” Antitrust Litigation is whether individual NFL teams can agree to license their broadcasts without competing with each other. NFL teams are competing businesses. Antitrust law ordinarily demands that competitors compete.

Instead of a world where, for example, the Chicago Bears license their broadcasting rights to a TV station in San Diego so that Bears fans living there can watch Bears games, possibly without cost or at least paying less than they pay for the Sunday Ticket, the Bears and the 31 other teams agree to pool their broadcasting rights through the Sunday Ticket. The service is available through YouTube TV for $349/year (discounts, promotions and add-ons can lower that price).

That pooling has been good for local…

Source link : https://www.yahoo.com/news/nfl-sunday-ticket-trial-going-120000610.html

Author : Sportico

Publish date : 2024-06-21 12:00:00

Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.