Plaintiffs Appeal After $4.7 Billion NFL Sunday Ticket Verdict Tossed

Lawyers representing more than two million NFL Sunday Ticket customers filed a notice of appeal, an expected move after a federal judge made the extraordinary decision to set aside the jury’s $4.7 billion verdict on Aug. 1. 

After a three-week trial in June, a Los Angeles jury ruled that NFL had overcharged for Sunday Ticket when the out-of-market package was distributed by DirecTV from June 17, 2011 through Feb. 7, 2023. That award, under federal antitrust law, could have been tripled to about $14 billion—more than the NFL takes in annually from its many U.S. TV distribution deals. 

The NFL, however, challenged the math used by the jury to come up with the award figure, arguing the number was not presented at trial. U.S. District Court Judge Philip Gutierrez ultimately agreed with the league’s lawyers. 

“The Court finds that the jury’s damages awards were not based on the ‘evidence and reasonable inferences’ but instead were more akin to ‘guesswork or speculation.’” Gutierrez wrote in his Aug. 1 decision tossing the verdict. 

On Aug. 20, Gutierrez entered his final judgment in the case, which also meant there’d be no structural changes—including a price cut—to the current Sunday Ticket setup on YouTube TV. 

In their notice of appeal to the 9th Circuit filed Friday night, lawyers for the plaintiffs wrote that they will challenge the Aug. 20 final judgment “and all other orders, opinions, rulings, and decisions,” including Gutierrez’s Aug. 1 decision to grant the NFL’s motion for a judgment as a matter of law. 

Sunday Ticket currently costs $449 annually for non–YouTube TV subscribers and $349 a year for YouTube TV subscribers. 

Google’s YouTube TV became the exclusive home to Sunday Ticket ahead of the 2023 NFL season for residential customers as part of a seven-year, $14 billion deal. DirecTV, which had distributed Sunday Ticket since its inception in 1994, paid $300 million annually before its deal expired after the 2022 season.