NEWS & CASES

  1. Home
  2.  » 
  3. News and Cases
  4.  » Law 360: NFL Sunday Ticket Runs Afoul Of Antitrust Laws, Suit Says

Law 360: NFL Sunday Ticket Runs Afoul Of Antitrust Laws, Suit Says

Oct 19, 2015

The National Football League’s teams have conspired with DirecTV and television networks to inflate the cost of watching football games by selling broadcast rights collectively instead of on a team-by-team basis, sports bars and fans told a New York federal court Friday.

In NFL Sunday Ticket Runs Afoul Of Antitrust Laws, Suit SaysLaw 360’s Shayna Posses reports that the proposed class action alleges that NFL Sunday Ticket, offered exclusively through DirecTV, is anticompetitive because it provides the only way to watch games other than the few broadcast through sponsored telecasts or on certain cable channels, allowing for monopoly pricing and forcing fans to pay for access to all 32 teams’ games, even if they’re only interested in a few teams.

It is no coincidence that the NFL is the only league that has so drastically limited competition, the complaint says. Bundles for Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League and the National Basketball Association games are available from numerous distributors, resulting in much lower prices.