Consolidated DirecTV/NFL Antitrust Complaints Dismissed

The numerous sports bars and individual DirecTV subscribers suing the MVPD and NFL over DirecTV's Sunday Ticket programming haven't shown the existence of a market where the defendants have the power to restrain trade or artificially inflate prices, U.S. District Judge Beverly Reid O'Connell of Los Angeles said in an order (in Pacer) Friday throwing out 27 consolidated lawsuits. She said the plaintiffs failed to show how DirecTV and the NFL restrained trade or have sufficient market power to artificially drive prices up, especially since the NFL offers free game broadcasts on CBS and Fox. DirecTV might be charging inflated prices for Sunday Ticket, but that by itself doesn't constitute harm to competition, she said. DirecTV's exclusive rights to the NFL programming also has pro-competitive aspects, the judge said, citing DirecTV packaging and promoting products "that result in greater fan access and NFL game exposure." The judge also rejected plaintiffs' arguments that NFL teams’ pooling of their broadcast rights violates Section 1 of the Sherman Act. She said rights to games are owned by multiple entities, including the NFL and whatever teams are taking part in a given game, so the multiple entities have to act collectively to broadcast the games. And she said the plaintiffs don't have standing to challenge the horizontal rights agreement between the NFL and the individual teams since they buy games from DirecTV and thus have standing to sue for damages only from the vertical agreement between DirecTV and the NFL. Defendants in the case were the individual NFL teams, the NFL, DirecTV, CBS, Fox, NBCUniversal and ESPN. In a statement, DirecTV owner AT&T said it "agree[s] with the court’s analysis and [is] pleased with the ruling." Plaintiffs' counsel didn't comment Monday.