Judge tosses $4.7 billion NFL jury verdict
A federal judge on Thursday rejected a $4.7 billion jury verdict against the National Football League over its Sunday Ticket TV package because he said the damages amount was based on “flawed methodologies” by plaintiffs’ experts.
“Even if the Court did not find that judgment as a matter of law was appropriate, the Court would have vacated the jury’s damages verdict, remitted Defendants’ award to nominal damages, and conditionally granted a new trial based on the jury’s irrational damages award,” according to an order from U.S. District Judge Philip Gutierrez.
The ruling is a big loss for plaintiff’s attorneys at Susman Godfrey LLP after a jury in June ordered the NFL to pay $96.9 million to the commercial subscription class and $4.6 billion to the residential class in a class action alleging a years-long conspiracy between DirectTV, Fox Sports and CBS to make Sunday Ticket unaffordable for most consumers.
Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and NFL Commission Roger Goodell testified in the trial, as did Sean McManus, former chairman of CBS Sports. The plaintiffs experts were Daniel Rascher, an economics professor at San Francisco State University, and John Zona.
Rascher testified the NFL owed about $7 billion under a theory that considered the money subscribers could have saved had the 32 teams licensed the broadcast rights to their games individually instead of the league controlling everything. Another damages theory of about $3.5 billion was based on what consumers could have saved if Sunday Ticket was available through competition.
Guiterrez, however, said Rsascher’s and Zona’s testimony is invalid.
“But without Dr. Rascher’s and Dr. Zona’s testimonies, it is impossible for a jury to determine on a class-wide basis that Sunday Ticket subscribers would have indeed paid less in the absence of Defendants’ anticompetitive conduct,” according to Gutierrez’s 16-page order.
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