Bonn asserted that the NFL’s actions aimed to appease CBS and Fox by keeping Sunday Ticket subscribers low and ensuring the regular broadcast ratings remained high. This strategy, she argued, constituted price fixing and antitrust violations.
The NFL and DirecTV have been battling the antitrust allegations since 2015, with over 20 lawsuits centralized into multidistrict litigation. Bonn stated that the plaintiffs are seeking $7 billion in damages, which could be trebled under antitrust law to $21 billion.
Beth A. Wilkinson of Wilkinson Stekloff LLP, representing the NFL, countered that the NFL’s pricing discussions with DirecTV were not secretive and that DirecTV ultimately set the prices. She highlighted various other ways fans could watch NFL games during the class period.
Wilkinson argued that the exclusivity of the Sunday Ticket package was not anticompetitive, comparing it to exclusive broadcasts of TV shows like “Seinfeld” and “Game of Thrones.”
The first witness, former NFL Vice President Steve Bornstein, testified that he had little memory of the meetings and emails related to Sunday Ticket negotiations but insisted that DirecTV set the pricing during his tenure.
