NFL On Trial For Sunday Ticket Deal

[River_Dog]

This has been flying under the radar but it's outcome could make a huge difference in how we get our football fix, especially for fans that live outside the market of their favorite teams, and it could affect competitiveness, lead to a rich getting richer scenario. I've copied and pasted a few of the more important aspects:

The class-action suit, which alleges that the NFL violated antitrust law and harmed consumers through the sale of its exclusive “Sunday Ticket” telecast package of games, is a direct challenge to the league’s lucrative media rights deals. Those who could be summoned to testify include commissioner Roger Goodell and Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, while documents shown during the trial could provide a rare glimpse into how the NFL conducts its business behind closed doors.

The case essentially pits the league against a class composed of millions of its own fans who shelled out big bucks for a premium product.

Even for a fabulously rich sports league, the case carries an enormous risk. On the high end of their modeling, the plaintiffs estimate the damages at $7 billion. And in antitrust cases, those get tripled—meaning that in a doomsday scenario, the NFL could be staring down a $21 billion bill.

“This matters for two reasons. First, there is a large sum of money involved here that realistically may be transferred from the NFL teams to consumers,” said Marc Edelman, a professor of sports and antitrust law at Baruch College’s business school. “Second, in terms of the NFL’s business practices moving forward, the decision here will play a role in determining whether individual NFL teams must compete against each other in the sale of rights to broadcast their games.”

The case boils down to how NFL teams pool together and then collectively sell their media rights, and a jury will have to decide whether aspects of that arrangement are anticompetitive.

On Sunday afternoons during the season, CBS and Fox air games regionally, while out-of-market games are available through the Sunday Ticket package, which was available through DirecTV before last season, and is now sold through YouTube TV. In other words, New Yorkers can watch every Jets game on television, but a Carolina Panthers fan living in New York must subscribe to Sunday Ticket to watch every one of their games.

Without the agreements, they argue, teams would sell those rights individually or in smaller groups—more in line with college football’s model, which produces games on an array of different networks. They say this would create more telecasts of NFL games that would be accessible to more viewers at a lower price.

The plaintiffs also allege that the NFL engaged in a price-fixing scheme that inflated the cost of the Sunday Ticket package. In a heavily redacted legal filing earlier this year, the plaintiffs say that among the 1.2 million pages of discovery produced by the league, they identified two “smoking-gun” documents that provide evidence of this.

Additionally, they (the NFL) argue that if teams sold their rights individually, it would torpedo the sport’s competitive equality—and hurt fans as a result. For example, the Jacksonville Jaguars might receive far less money on a deal than the Dallas Cowboys, leaving them with fewer resources to compete.

https://www.wsj.com/sports/football/nfl ... mod=RSSMSN

There's more in there if you're interested.

[NorthHawk]

Behind a paywall.

Would it render the Salary Cap obsolete? In other words would the competitive balance be skewed or would it just be a different model of revenue streaming?
Off the top of my head, those two questions are what concern me the most as there could still be revenue sharing but from different sources.

Edit:
Here's a short comment from PFT (that doesn't answer my questions).

https://www.nbcsports.com/nfl/profootba ... arts-today

[c_hawkbob]

Good! I'd love to be able to buy just Seahawks games that are not nationally televised for $10 or so a game!

I paid for Sunday ticket every year it was with Direct TV, wonder if this'll put any money in my pocket ...

[River_Dog]

Behind a paywall.

Would it render the Salary Cap obsolete? In other words would the competitive balance be skewed or would it just be a different model of revenue streaming?
Off the top of my head, those two questions are what concern me the most as there could still be revenue sharing but from different sources.

Edit:
Here's a short comment from PFT (that doesn't answer my questions).

https://www.nbcsports.com/nfl/profootba ... arts-today

There's a lot of other outlets that are covering this story. Here's one from Bloomberg:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nfl/nf ... ngNewsSerp

You mentioned the problem from a competitiveness standpoint, that it might make the salary cap obsolete. One of the beauties of the NFL vs. MLB, for example, is that the vast majority of their media revenue is split evenly between big and small market teams alike. A decision that goes against the league could upset what to this point has been a very successful formula.

The WSJ article mentioned college football's model, which is absolutely horrible as we've seen with the recent break-up of the Pac12 conference, with the two poorest/smallest conference members left holding the bag and a couple of very dedicated fan bases getting the shaft. Would something like that befall the NFL if the big market teams started getting a bigger share of the pie?