At this point, the jury finding could cost $4.7 billion at a minimum.
National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell and his legal team are picking themselves off the floor and are ready to fight again in court. The NFL lost a class-action lawsuit which revolved around its pricing of its “Sunday Ticket” package that was available to NFL consumers for 30 years so the consumers could watch out-of-market football games. The league was accused of violating antitrust laws. A jury found the NFL liable and awarded businesses and consumers who purchased the “Sunday Ticket” package from June 17th, 2011, to February 7th, 2023, $4.7 billion and that number could be tripled.
The initial lawsuit was filed by a San Francisco bar called the Mucky Duck and grew into a class-action suit. The NFL was accused of keeping the price of Sunday Ticket artificially high so that a majority of consumers would watch games on broadcast and cable. It is possible that the NFL’s 31 owners and the Green Bay Packers Board of Directors could each pay $450 million in damages. How would the NFL make up the losses? The answer to that is to expand. Major League Baseball took in the Denver and Miami markets in the early 1990s because the owners were caught colluding and keeping players’ salaries artificially low. MLB owners had to pay $280 million in damages. MLB owners got $190 million from Denver and Miami investors and $260 million from a 1996 expansion into the Phoenix and Tampa Bay markets. The NFL is not in an expansion mode but the league owners could eventually turn to expansion if they are unsuccessful in their Sunday Ticket appeal. Goodell has mentioned that he believes London could host two teams and that would probably be the amount of money the NFL owners need if they have to pay a full judgement. It is early in the lawsuit game.
