Judge in $14,000,000,000 Sunday Ticket lawsuit says jury didn’t follow his instructions on damages
The Sunday Ticket lawsuit is among the biggest controversies in recent NFL history, and it has taken a new turn.
The plaintiffs, a collection of customers and bars who claim that they were offered the out-of-market subscription at highly inflated prices and only via satellite providers, want almost $5 billion in damages, which can be tripled to around $14 billion via federal antitrust laws.
But according to US District Judge Philip Gutierrez, the jury responsible for determining the damages to be paid did not use the right formula. Instead of Daniel Rascher's college model ($7.01 billion) or John Zona's multiple-distributor model ($3.48 billion), it went with the 2021 list price of $293.96 and subtracted $102.74, the actual average price paid by subscribers.
Then it used the "overcharge" of $191.26 and multipled it by the number of customers to reach the amount of damages. NFL attorney Brian Stekloff spoke about the calculation as he addressed Gutierrez, saying that the "damages amount is indefensible."
Jerry Jones believes the Sunday Ticket lawsuit will have ramifications on salary caps
Elsewhere, team owners are wondering whether the verdict on the Sunday Ticket lawsuit will affect how their players are paid. An insight from an anonymous league spokesperson was discussed in NBC's Pro Football Talk column on Thursday, July 26, and the following was said:
“Salary cap is based on revenue. It’s premature at this point to know if there will need to be changes.”
One of the owners who believes in major ramifications is the Dallas Cowboys' Jerry Jones. Speaking to Nick Harris, a writer from the official Dallas Cowboys website, Jones said:
“It has to be considered. It doesn’t make me flare, but it’s a fact. I think I know better than anybody of what the cap will be four years from now.”
Jones' Green Bay Packers counterpart, CEO Mark Murphy, also had words to say about the lawsuit in the July edition of his "Murphy Takes 5" column on the official Packers website:
“This was obviously big news last week. I was disappointed in the verdict and know that we will appeal the decision. I would also echo the sentiments that the league expressed in its statement:
"We are disappointed with the jury's verdict in the NFL Sunday Ticket lawsuit. We believe that our media distribution strategy, which features all games broadcast on free over-the-air television in the markets of the participating teams and national distribution of our most popular games, supplemented by Red Zone, Sunday Ticket, and NFL+, is the most fan friendly distribution model in sports."
No date for the next trial has been set so far.