The NFL is facing a significant legal battle that could change how fans watch football and how the league concludes its TV deals. On March 9, 2026, a long-running antitrust class action lawsuit over “NFL Sunday Ticket” returns to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. And the biggest threat staring the NFL right in the face is a potential $14.1 billion judgment under federal antitrust laws.

Let’s begin from the very beginning.

• 2015: A lawsuit covering 2.4 million residential subscribers and 48,000 businesses in the United States was filed in Los Angeles, accusing the NFL and its broadcast partners of offering the “Sunday Ticket” package exclusively as a full-bundle package. Consumers are consequently forced to buy every single out-of-market game. This effectively restricted consumer choice to watch the specific teams they wanted. It is also the reason why following the NFL is getting pricier for the public.
• 2017: U.S. District Judge Beverly Reid O’Connell dismissed the lawsuit, concluding that the package did not reduce the output of NFL games.
• 2019: The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the case.
• June 27, 2024: After a three-week trial, a jury of five men and three women deliberated for nearly five hours to vote in favor of the plaintiffs. They ordered the NFL to pay $4.8 billion in total damages, awarding $4.7 billion to the residential class and $96 million to the commercial class.
• July 31, 2024: U.S. District Judge Philip Gutierrez heard post-trial motions where the NFL requested that he rule in favor of the league because the judge determined the plaintiffs did not prove their case.
• August 1, 2024: Gutierrez ruled that the testimony of two witnesses for the subscribers had flawed methodologies and should have been excluded. He concluded that “Without the testimonies of Dr. (Daniel) Rascher and Dr. (John) Zona, no reasonable jury could have found class-wide injury or damages.”

Right then, it was expected that the plaintiffs could appeal to the Ninth Circuit again. That brings us to today. 

The plaintiffs have taken the case to the Ninth Circuit for a hearing just two weeks away. The argument now will be about the technicalities, which Gutierrez believed came down to the math.

We don’t yet know who three of the 51 judges would be on the appeals panel. However, the Ninth Circuit overruled the trial dismissal in the case almost a decade ago. It can do it again. While the outcome cannot be predicted as of now, there’s a possibility that they could reinstate the full verdict, order a full retrial, or simply order a new calculation of damages to spur the settlement talks.

If found guilty, the NFL could be held liable for over $14 billion dollars, according to the federal antitrust laws that can triple the damages. With that, this could cost each of the 32 NFL teams about $440 million. Another question could be how does it all benefit the NFL?

At the heart of the issue is how the NFL controls what you see. Evidence from the trial suggests the league keeps Sunday Ticket prices high on purpose.

By making the streaming package expensive, they nudge fans to watch the free games on local CBS and FOX stations. This protects the billion-dollar deals the NFL has with those networks. However, it leaves fans paying much more than they should for the games they actually want.

If the NFL loses this final fight, it could be the end of the “all-or-nothing” model. For the first time since 1994, fans might finally get cheaper, more flexible options—like a package that only shows their favorite team’s games. But, as it always has, the league can still overturn the case once again.

How can the NFL save itself, and what can go wrong?

First, let’s set this straight that in 2024, even though the testimony of two witnesses was thrown away, the violation was proven. And every time such evidences are presented, the violation will be proven. However, that doesn’t mean the league cannot save itself, even if temporarily, until the case is brought up again.

• Previously, the league unsuccessfully argued that its teams own their media rights. They lost that ruling as leagues, and the teams are joint creators of games for TV, so they can act as a single unit to sell them. They can put the point forward again. Considering that the judges are different, it could go either way.
• It was found that the NFL has no true equivalent competitor. As such, the league’s singular means of distributing out-of-market games is monopolistic within the narrow market of pro football. However, a market is defined by the consumer as an adequate source of the product, creating various competitors even for the league, like the NFL.

“I think the NFL on the law has a highly meritorious case, but it’s a crapshoot in the Ninth Circuit,” said Jodi Balsam, a former NFL staff lawyer who now teaches law at Brooklyn Law School.

In gist, the NFL still believes its “media distribution strategy, which features all NFL games broadcast on free over-the-air television in the markets of the participating teams and national distribution of our most popular games, supplemented by many additional choices including RedZone, Sunday Ticket and NFL+, is by far the most fan-friendly distribution model in all of sports and entertainment.”

The court must now determine if the trial judge was wrong to dismiss the jury’s decision or if the NFL’s “bundled” broadcasting model is legally protected. The outcome of this March hearing could fundamentally change how the NFL sells its games, opening the door for cheaper, more flexible viewing options for fans across the country.

As for the league, they had already mentioned two years ago that if the result is not in their favor, they do not mind dragging it to the Supreme Court for a final verdict.