Summary of the arguments from the complaint in the case:
“The Supreme Court has observed that each NFL team is a "substantial, independently owned, and independently managed business," competing with its rivals "not only on the playing field, but to attract fans, for gate receipts and for contracts with managerial and playing personnel," as well as "in the market for intellectual property." American Needle Inc. v. NFL, 560 U.S. 183, 196-97 (2009). In 1961, a court ruling prevented the joint selling of broadcast rights by the NFL. In response to that ruling the NFL lobbied and received an antitrust exemption to jointly sell or transfer sponsored telecast rights for "the free telecasting of professional sports contests," with no exemption for pay, cable or satellite television distribution.
Instead of each team individually offering to distribute their games nationally through pay, cable or satellite television distribution, they have joined together to create a distribution monopoly. The allegations are: 1.) the total elimination of competition allows the NFL, its Teams, and DirecTV to charge supracompetitive monopoly prices, rather than the prices that would exist if the 32 teams were competing for interest and distribution in a free market; and 2.) Class members must pay for access to all 32 teams’ out-of-market games, even if they are only interested in viewing one or two teams’ games.
The exclusive deal the NFL had with DirectTV, FOX, ESPN, CBS and NBC, results in a black-out or unavailability of out-of-market games, except through NFL/DirectTV Sunday Ticket. This injures competition from other providers like Dish Network, Comcast, and Spectrum by limiting game options and package mixes and imposing supracompetitive prices on consumers. This exclusive distribution arrangement is unique among American sports. Of the four major professional sports in this country—baseball, basketball, hockey, and football—the only one with an exclusive out-of-market broadcasting arrangement is the NFL/DirecTV Sunday Ticket. Major League Baseball (“MLB”), the National Basketball Association (“NBA”), and the National Hockey League (“NHL”) all distribute live out-of-market games through multiple cable providers, including, for example, DirecTV, the Dish Network, and InDemand (which originated as a consortium of Comcast, Cox Communications and Time Warner Cable). As a result, DirecTV does not charge nearly as much for access to MLB Extra Innings, NBA League Pass, and NHL Center Ice, which provide access to more games per week over a longer season than the NFL.
DirecTV has willfully joined, encouraged, and entrenched the Teams’ conspiracy. It contracted with the NFL to make Sunday Ticket exclusive to DirecTV, so that no other cable or satellite distributor could sell it. In doing so, it required that the NFL and its Teams preserve their anticompetitive agreement not to compete with one another. DirecTV’s agreement to carry Sunday Ticket and not to deal individually with NFL teams is premised upon the continued existence of the anticompetitive agreement not to create and distribute individual team telecasts. As explained below, the Teams, in affirming the NFL’s successive agreements with DirecTV, have mandated that nothing in the NFL’s contracts with the Networks shall in any way impede the exclusive deal between the DirecTV and the NFL.”
