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The Sunday Ticket lawsuit had been haunting the NFL for months, as it stood to lose at least $4.7 billion from its coffers to fans and businesses who felt ripped off at how much they had had to pay to afford the service.
But on Thursday, the league scored a massive victory when US District Court Judge Philip Gutierrez struck down the initial jury's ruling in June that it had to pay the damages. He opined:
“...The jury’s damages verdict is clearly not supported by the evidence and must be vacated.”
Fans felt angry:
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More of the shock and anger can be seen below:
"How much he get paid to do that?" one wondered.
"Guess I’m not taking a vacation," another sighed.
"Bro got a life time subscription for free, probably," yet another hypothesized.
Breaking down the arguments in NFL's Sunday Ticket lawsuit
How important is the Sunday Ticket lawsuit to the NFL?
In this increasingly online era, people, more than ever, are starting to eschew traditional television, whether cable or satellite, in favor of streaming. Streaming theoretically allows fans to watch their favorite team's games regardless of where they live, e.g. a Washington Commanders fan in Las Vegas.
The plaintiffs say that the 'Sunday Ticket' should be reasonably priced (in other words, inexpensive). The NFL, meanwhile, argues that it is a premium service, so it should naturally be expensive, especially with games being available on other streaming platforms such as Amazon Prime and, eventually, Netflix.
In an episode of the "Las Vegas Raiders Insider" podcast last month, Attorney Jonathan Schopp said:
"The NFL says, This is a case about choice, this is a valuable premium product. You think about all the choices available; we want as many people watching the free broadcast as they can, and this is a premium product.'
He continued:
"It is interesting the way we put it into (the) context of what is going on right now. We are seeing games taken away from Sunday Ticket. They are being put on Amazon, Netflix... Yet the price is staying level or going up. For those of us that have already renewed, we know it is not like (it) all of a sudden has dropped by proportionately how many games have been taken off that ticket."
So far, there has been no news about a retrial.
