The NFL is fighting an antitrust lawsuit on multiple fronts at once. The flagship case is the Sunday Ticket class action, where a California jury awarded roughly $4.8 billion in June 2024 before the trial judge wiped out the verdict five weeks later; that decision is now before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, with a ruling expected in mid-to-late 2026.1Sportico. NFL Sunday Ticket Appeal at the Ninth Circuit At the same time, the U.S. Department of Justice has opened an antitrust investigation into the league’s media deals, the FCC has launched a public inquiry, and the House Judiciary Committee has called the NFL’s broadcast model a “house of cards built on an overstretched antitrust exemption.”2U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary. New Report: Sports Broadcasting Act, A Special-Interest Antitrust Exemption Gone Awry Here is where each matter stands and how they connect.
The Sunday Ticket Class Action
The case, In re National Football League’s “Sunday Ticket” Antitrust Litigation, was filed in 2015 on behalf of DirecTV subscribers who bought the out-of-market package between the 2011 and 2022 seasons. The plaintiffs alleged that the NFL and its 32 teams violated Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act by pooling their out-of-market broadcast rights and selling them exclusively to DirecTV as a single, expensive bundle, eliminating competition among teams and forcing fans into an all-or-nothing choice.3NFLSundayTicketLawsuit.com. FAQ Four classes were certified. The residential class alone covered roughly 2.4 million subscribers, and the commercial class covered about 48,000 bars, restaurants, and other businesses.4NPR. NFL Ordered to Pay Billions in Sunday Ticket Antitrust Case
The plaintiffs relied heavily on American Needle, Inc. v. NFL, the Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling that NFL teams are separately owned businesses with distinct economic interests and cannot shield joint conduct from antitrust scrutiny by invoking the league structure.5Justia U.S. Supreme Court. American Needle Inc. v. National Football League, 560 U.S. 183
The Verdict and Its Reversal
On June 27, 2024, an eight-person jury in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California found that the NFL had conspired with DirecTV, CBS, and Fox to control prices and restrict output of out-of-market games. Jurors awarded approximately $4.6 billion to residential subscribers and $96 million to commercial subscribers. Those damages would be automatically tripled under federal antitrust law, pushing the NFL’s potential exposure past $14 billion.6Courthouse News Service. NFL Slammed With $4.7 Billion Verdict in Sunday Ticket Antitrust Trial4NPR. NFL Ordered to Pay Billions in Sunday Ticket Antitrust Case
The verdict stood for about five weeks. On August 1, 2024, U.S. District Judge Philip S. Gutierrez granted the NFL’s post-trial motion for judgment as a matter of law and set the award aside. He ruled that the plaintiffs’ expert economists, Daniel Rascher and John Zona, should have been excluded under Federal Rule of Evidence 702. Rascher’s central argument was that without the NFL’s pooling arrangement, out-of-market games would be distributed much like college football: widely available on over-the-air and basic cable channels at no extra cost. The judge called that a speculative analogy built on unsupported assumptions, found Rascher had not explained how NFL teams would actually make games available for free, and concluded that differences between college and professional football made the comparison unreliable.1Sportico. NFL Sunday Ticket Appeal at the Ninth Circuit7ESPN. Judge Rules NFL Overturns $4.7B Sunday Ticket Verdict
Without that expert testimony, Gutierrez concluded, no reasonable jury could have found class-wide injury or calculated damages. He also called the jury’s math “nonsensical,” noting that jurors appeared to have treated the gap between Sunday Ticket’s listed retail price ($294) and the average price subscribers actually paid ($102.74) as an “overcharge,” ignoring the court’s damages instructions. Even if he had not entered judgment outright, he wrote, he would have ordered a new trial.8Legal Dive. NFL Sunday Ticket Multi-Billion Verdict Tossed by Federal Judge7ESPN. Judge Rules NFL Overturns $4.7B Sunday Ticket Verdict
What the Ninth Circuit Is Weighing
The plaintiffs appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (case No. 24-5493). Oral arguments were heard on March 9, 2026, before Judges Joan Lefkow, Anthony Johnstone, and Holly Thomas. Plaintiffs’ attorney Amanda Bonn argued that Gutierrez had overstepped by taking the case away from the jury and that questions about the weight of expert testimony belong to jurors. NFL attorney Paul Clement countered that the trial judge acted within his discretion in excluding testimony built on flawed methodology.1Sportico. NFL Sunday Ticket Appeal at the Ninth Circuit
Judge Lefkow said she found it “remarkable” that the trial judge had removed the matter from the jury, calling it her “fundamental problem” with the NFL’s argument. Other panel members pressed the plaintiffs on whether the jury’s damages calculation could survive scrutiny.9Sports Business Journal. Appeals Court Poses Skeptical Questions to NFL in Sunday Ticket Case1Sportico. NFL Sunday Ticket Appeal at the Ninth Circuit10Berger Montague. In Re National Football League’s Sunday Ticket Antitrust Litigation
Why the NFL’s Broadcast Model Keeps Landing in Court
Behind every one of these antitrust fights is a single 1961 statute. After a federal court ruled that the NFL’s league-wide television contract violated antitrust law, Congress passed the Sports Broadcasting Act (SBA), giving professional sports leagues a narrow exemption: they could collectively sell broadcast rights for free, over-the-air “sponsored telecasting” without antitrust liability. The point was to keep small-market teams viable.2U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary. New Report: Sports Broadcasting Act, A Special-Interest Antitrust Exemption Gone Awry
Courts have consistently held that the exemption does not cover cable, satellite, or subscription services. A federal appeals court ruled in the 1990s that “sponsored telecasting” means advertising-supported broadcasts received free by viewers, not pay-per-view or satellite bundles. The same logic reaches modern streaming platforms such as Amazon Prime Video and YouTube TV, which remain subject to the Sherman Act.11Iowa Journal of Corporation Law. The Sports Broadcasting Act and the NFL in the Streaming Era The gap between what the SBA actually protects and how the NFL now distributes its games is the common thread running through the Sunday Ticket case, the DOJ probe, and the congressional scrutiny.
The DOJ Antitrust Investigation
The U.S. Department of Justice confirmed publicly in April 2026 that it has opened an antitrust investigation into the NFL’s media practices. The probe is examining whether the league’s distribution model harms consumers by driving up costs and whether it tilts the field among media providers. It comes as the NFL renegotiates portions of its 11-year, $111 billion media rights package and expands its relationships with streaming platforms including Netflix and Amazon. The league has defended its approach, describing its media distribution as “the most fan and broadcaster-friendly in the entire sports and entertainment industry” and noting that over 87% of games remain on free, over-the-air television.12CNBC. DOJ Investigating NFL Media Rights Antitrust
Congressional and FCC Scrutiny
The House Judiciary Report and Hearing
On June 8, 2026, the House Judiciary Committee and its Subcommittee on the Administrative State, Regulatory Reform, and Antitrust released an interim staff report titled The Sports Broadcasting Act: A Special-Interest Antitrust Exemption Gone Awry. The report accused the NFL of using immunity designed for free television to funnel fans into expensive paywalled platforms.2U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary. New Report: Sports Broadcasting Act, A Special-Interest Antitrust Exemption Gone Awry
The committee challenged the NFL’s “87% on broadcast TV” figure, noting that it only means a station somewhere in the country carries the game. In practice, the average NFL game reaches just 39% of U.S. households, and in 2016, 113 of 256 regular-season games aired in fewer than 20% of households. The report also found that more than 70% of former Sunday Ticket subscribers who canceled cited high costs as their primary reason, that some fans pay more than $600 per season to follow a single team, and that, adjusted for inflation, NFL teams now receive over 100 times greater payouts from league revenues than they did in 1961, undercutting the SBA’s original rationale.13U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary. The Sports Broadcasting Act: A Special-Interest Antitrust Exemption Gone Awry (Full Report)
Two days later, the subcommittee held a hearing titled “Examining the Sports Broadcasting Act.” Witnesses included FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, National Association of Broadcasters CEO Curtis LeGeyt, OutKick Media president Clay Travis, and Tailgators restaurant founder Jim Hallers. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell did not testify; a league attorney said he was unable to attend due to “ongoing litigation that centers in part on the topic at hand.” Members from both parties questioned the shift toward streaming, with Republicans criticizing the scatter of games across Netflix, Amazon, and YouTube and Democrats raising concerns about media consolidation and rising consumer costs.14The Desk. House Hearing on Sports Media Deals, Broadcast, and Streaming
The FCC Inquiry and Baldwin’s Bill
The Federal Communications Commission launched its own inquiry in February 2026, opening a public comment docket (MB Docket No. 26-45) to examine how the migration of live sports to streaming affects consumers and local broadcasters. The FCC noted that in 2025, NFL games were distributed across 10 different services, with some estimates suggesting it could cost fans over $1,500 annually to access every game.15FCC. Public Notice: Live Sports Migration to Streaming Platforms FCC Chair Brendan Carr has warned that the league could lose its antitrust protections if it continues moving games behind streaming paywalls.16New York Post. NFL Defends Shift to Streaming in Meeting With FCC By June 2026 the proceeding had drawn more than 8,000 public comments, with no rulemaking action yet taken.17Orlando Sentinel. NFL Federal Scrutiny Over Streaming
In Congress, Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) introduced the “For the Fans Act” in April 2026. The bill would bar league-owned streaming services from blacking out locally broadcast games, require that fans in a team’s home state be able to watch all games for free (via broadcast or ad-supported streaming), and mandate that nationally televised games involving a state’s teams be available statewide at no charge. It would apply to the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, WNBA, MLS, and NWSL. Baldwin pointed to a January 2026 Packers-Bears playoff game that was available only on Amazon Prime Video outside the Green Bay and Milwaukee markets as the kind of scenario the bill targets.18Sen. Tammy Baldwin. Baldwin’s New Bill to End Sports Blackouts and Cut Streaming Costs
Jon Gruden’s Lawsuit Against the League
A separate suit worth tracking is Jon Gruden’s. The former Las Vegas Raiders head coach sued the NFL and Commissioner Roger Goodell in November 2021, alleging they orchestrated the leak of private emails containing racist, homophobic, and misogynistic language to force his resignation. Gruden claims the leak was part of a “malicious and orchestrated campaign” to destroy his career and seeks monetary damages for lost income and reputational harm.19Yahoo Sports. NFL to Appeal After Nevada Supreme Court Approves Jon Gruden’s Lawsuit
The NFL spent years trying to push the case into private arbitration overseen by Goodell himself. In August 2025, the Nevada Supreme Court ruled 5-2 that the arbitration clause in the NFL’s constitution was “unconscionable” and did not apply to Gruden as a former employee, noting that letting a defendant serve as his own arbitrator with power to amend the governing rules without notice was fundamentally unfair.20CBS Sports. Jon Gruden vs. NFL Lawsuit: Nevada Supreme Court Sides With Former Coach21Las Vegas Review-Journal. Judge Refuses to Delay Discovery Process in Jon Gruden’s Suit Against NFL22Sports Litigation Alert. Court Sets May 2027 Trial Date for Gruden v. NFL
What Isn’t Part of the Antitrust Picture
Two other high-profile NFL legal matters get grouped with the antitrust fights but are separate. The league’s $1 billion-plus concussion settlement, approved in 2015 and overseen by Judge Anita Brody in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, is a product-liability and personal-injury program covering former players with qualifying neurological conditions; more than $1.6 billion has been paid on roughly 2,100 claims, and in June 2026 special masters reported that five law firms had been barred for a fraudulent scheme involving Parkinson’s disease claims that produced 57 approved payouts totaling over $95 million before auditors caught it.23WSLS. Law Firms Cheated in Filing Claims With NFL’s $1 Billion Concussion Settlement Fund24ABC News. Law Firms Cheated in Filing Claims With NFL’s $1 Billion Concussion Settlement Fund The $790 million settlement the NFL, Rams owner Stan Kroenke, and co-defendants paid in November 2021 to resolve St. Louis’s claims over the Rams’ 2016 relocation to Los Angeles alleged violations of the league’s own relocation guidelines, not the Sherman Act, and is already resolved.25NFL.com. $790M Settlement Reached in Lawsuit Over Rams’ St. Louis Departure
What to Watch
The unusual feature of this moment is the convergence. The Ninth Circuit’s ruling on Sunday Ticket could revive a case that re-litigates whether pooled broadcast rights harm consumers. The DOJ probe and FCC inquiry are examining the same model through a regulatory lens. Congress is openly debating whether to narrow or repeal the SBA exemption that has sheltered the league’s collective television deals since 1961. And the NFL’s expanding streaming portfolio, including an extended four-year deal with Netflix covering Christmas Day games and a regular-season matchup in Australia, keeps feeding the argument that the league has outgrown the antitrust shelter Congress built for free television.26Fox News. NFL Pushes Deeper Into Streaming as Netflix Lands Australia Game Amid FCC, DOJ Scrutiny The NFL maintains its media strategy is a lawful evolution that complements broadcast TV and reaches cord-cutting audiences, with the vast majority of games still available for free over the air.27New York Post. Congress Takes Aim at NFL’s Antitrust Exemption Over Soaring TV Costs for Fans Whether courts, regulators, and Congress agree will be answered across 2026 and 2027.