Sunday Ticket Verdict Reinstated, Damages Not: Ninth Circuit Restores NFL Liability and Orders a New Trial

The Sunday Ticket verdict was reinstated on liability only: on Friday, Oct. 30, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit restored the June 2024 jury finding that the NFL and its 32 clubs violated federal antitrust law through the out-of-market Sunday Ticket package, but it upheld the trial judge's ruling that the roughly $4.7 billion damages award could not stand and sent the case back to Los Angeles for a new trial on damages. For the 2.4 million residential subscribers and 48,000 bars and restaurants in the class, that means the league is again an adjudicated antitrust violator, yet no one gets paid until a second jury puts a defensible number on the overcharge.

The decision in In re National Football League's "Sunday Ticket" Antitrust Litigation, the consolidated proceeding the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) built in the Central District of California as MDL No. 2668, is a split verdict of its own. The plaintiffs won the doctrinal fight over expert testimony; the NFL won the fight over the number. Several early headlines, including the widely syndicated Reuters story, said the $4.7 billion figure itself had been reinstated. It was not, and the distinction is the single most important thing to understand about the ruling.

Was the $4.7 billion Sunday Ticket verdict reinstated?

No. The Ninth Circuit reinstated the jury's liability verdict, not its damages award. The panel affirmed District Judge Philip S. Gutierrez's conditional order granting a new trial on damages, so the $4.61 billion awarded to residential subscribers and the $96.93 million awarded to commercial subscribers in June 2024 are vacated and will be replaced by whatever figure a new jury returns.

NBC Sports' ProFootballTalk flagged within hours that the Reuters framing had overstated the result, and most outlets, including the Associated Press, Sportico, Variety and Deadline, described the ruling as a liability win for subscribers coupled with a damages retrial. The practical upshot: the NFL faces no judgment today, owes no money today, and cannot be required to post a bond on the 2024 number, because that number no longer exists.

What did the Ninth Circuit decide in the NFL Sunday Ticket case?

The panel did three things. It reversed Judge Gutierrez's August 2024 grant of judgment as a matter of law for the NFL, it affirmed his alternative order for a new trial on damages, and it remanded with instructions to reinstate the jury's liability verdict and hold a damages-only retrial.

The opinion was written by Circuit Judge Anthony D. Johnstone. Sportico reported that the March 9, 2026 argument was heard by Circuit Judges Holly A. Thomas and Johnstone and District Judge Joan H. Lefkow, sitting by designation, and Courthouse News described the decision as unanimous.

The core of the reversal is evidentiary. After the jury returned its verdict, Judge Gutierrez concluded that the plaintiffs' two economists, Daniel Rascher and Douglas Zona, had built their damages models on unreliable assumptions and excluded their testimony under Federal Rule of Evidence 702. With the experts gone, he held that no reasonable jury could have found class-wide injury or damages and entered judgment for the league. The Ninth Circuit held that the exclusion was an abuse of discretion. "Opinions are neither unfounded nor unreliable merely because they are impeachable," Judge Johnstone wrote, adding: "Such opinions are for the jury to weigh at trial."

Because the judgment as a matter of law rested entirely on those exclusions, it fell with them. The liability verdict, which found that the league's agreement to pool telecast rights and sell out-of-market games only through a premium satellite package unreasonably restrained trade, comes back into force.

Why did the judge throw out the Sunday Ticket verdict?

Judge Gutierrez threw out the verdict in August 2024 for two independent reasons, and the Ninth Circuit treated them differently.

First, he ruled that Rascher's and Zona's opinions did not meet Rule 702. Rascher's model estimated what Sunday Ticket would have cost in a competitive "but-for" world and drew comparisons to the college football broadcast market. Judge Gutierrez found that comparison and the assumptions behind the model too speculative. According to Sportico, the Ninth Circuit concluded that his critique of Rascher's testimony and of the college football comparison was misplaced: the points he raised were legitimate cross-examination material, not grounds for removing the testimony from the case after the jury had heard it.

Second, he ruled that the jury had not actually used either expert's model. The jurors' arithmetic, as Sportico reconstructed it, subtracted an alleged average price actually paid by subscribers of $102.74 from the $294.00 list price of the package, producing a purported overcharge of $191.26 per subscription. That calculation did not track the methodology either expert presented, and Judge Gutierrez concluded the jury had disregarded his damages instructions. That second ground survived on appeal.

Why does the NFL get a new trial on damages?

The NFL gets a new trial because the Ninth Circuit agreed that the damages figure, unlike the liability finding, was not grounded in the evidence as the jury was instructed to weigh it. "The jury clearly awarded damages based on its improper consideration of the evidence rather than according to the district court's instructions," Judge Johnstone wrote, and the panel accepted the trial court's view that the award reflected "speculation or guesswork."

The result is less paradoxical than it looks once the procedural mechanics are laid out. A post-verdict judgment as a matter of law under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 50(b) asks whether the evidence, viewed in the verdict winner's favor, could support the verdict at all; it ends the case. A new-trial order under Rule 59 asks something narrower and more deferential to the trial judge: whether the verdict is against the clear weight of the evidence or the product of a jury that strayed from its instructions. Rule 50(c) requires a judge who grants judgment as a matter of law to rule conditionally on any new-trial motion, precisely so that an appellate court that reverses the first ruling can still give effect to the second. Judge Gutierrez did exactly that in 2024, and his conditional new-trial ruling is what the NFL salvaged on Oct. 30.

Put simply, the experts' testimony was admissible enough to support a liability finding, but the jury's chosen number did not come from that testimony. The fix is a fresh jury that hears the damages evidence and applies the instructions, not a judgment for the league.

The numbers at stake

Item	Figure	Status after Oct. 30, 2026
Residential class damages (June 2024 verdict)	$4.61 billion	Vacated; to be retried
Commercial class damages (June 2024 verdict)	$96.93 million	Vacated; to be retried
Combined single damages	about $4.7 billion	Vacated
Combined award if trebled under the Clayton Act	$14,121,779,833.92 (AP)	Hypothetical only
Sunday Ticket list price used by jurors	$294.00	Evidence for retrial
Average price allegedly actually paid	$102.74	Evidence for retrial
Jurors' implied overcharge per subscription	$191.26	Rejected as basis for award
Residential class members	about 2.4 million	Liability verdict reinstated
Commercial class members (bars, restaurants)	about 48,000	Liability verdict reinstated
Class period	2011–2022 NFL seasons	Unchanged

How much could the NFL owe in the Sunday Ticket lawsuit?

Nobody can say yet; a new jury will decide, and its figure will be trebled. Section 4 of the Clayton Act, 15 U.S.C. § 15, entitles a successful antitrust plaintiff to three times its actual damages plus a reasonable attorney's fee, so any single-damages number the retrial jury returns will be multiplied by three before judgment. Had the 2024 award survived, the AP calculated, the trebled total would have been $14,121,779,833.92.

The retrial could land lower, similar or higher. The plaintiffs keep both experts, whose models the Ninth Circuit has now held admissible, and they will try the case to a jury that is instructed, likely more pointedly, on how to translate those models into a number. The NFL will press the same vulnerabilities in the but-for pricing that persuaded Judge Gutierrez, now framed as weight rather than admissibility arguments. Post-judgment interest, fee-shifting and any offset for the class period's revenue mix will also matter once a figure exists. What is gone is the NFL's best outcome: a judgment wiping out the case entirely.

Timeline of MDL No. 2668

Date	Event
2015	First Sunday Ticket suits filed by bars and residential subscribers; JPML centralizes them in the Central District of California as MDL No. 2668
2017	District court dismisses the consolidated complaint
Aug. 2019	Divided Ninth Circuit revives the case, applying the co-conspirator exception to the indirect purchaser rule
2020	Supreme Court declines the NFL's request for early review
2023	Judge Gutierrez certifies residential and commercial classes
June 2024	Jury finds the NFL liable and awards about $4.7 billion
Aug. 2024	Judge Gutierrez excludes the plaintiffs' experts, grants the NFL judgment as a matter of law, and conditionally grants a new damages trial
Mar. 9, 2026	Ninth Circuit hears argument; panel signals skepticism of the post-verdict exclusion
Oct. 30, 2026	Ninth Circuit reinstates liability verdict and affirms new damages trial

Who is in the Sunday Ticket class action, and will subscribers get money?

The certified classes cover roughly 2.4 million residential subscribers and about 48,000 commercial establishments, such as bars and restaurants, that bought the NFL Sunday Ticket package on DirecTV for out-of-market games during the 2011 through 2022 seasons. Subscribers do not need to do anything now; there is no settlement and no claims process, and no money will be distributed until a damages judgment is entered and survives any further appeal, or the parties settle.

Two features of the class are worth noting. First, the class period ends with the 2022 season, the last before the package moved from DirecTV to YouTube TV, so later subscribers are not members. Second, the case began more than a decade ago; the earliest class members bought the package in 2011, and any recovery will reach them, if at all, on a timeline measured in years. ProFootballTalk and the AP both noted the remand could keep the case in the district court for many months before a retrial date is set.

Can the NFL appeal the Sunday Ticket ruling to the Supreme Court?

The NFL can ask, but a petition now is unlikely to succeed. The league said it is "disappointed by today's decision," defended Sunday Ticket as "by far the most fan-friendly distribution model in all of sports and entertainment," and said it is considering its options for further appellate review. Those options are a petition for rehearing or rehearing en banc in the Ninth Circuit, and a petition for certiorari.

The Supreme Court ordinarily waits for a final judgment, and an order remanding for a new trial on damages is interlocutory in the classic sense. The NFL already tried the early-review route once: after the 2019 revival, the Court declined to take the case in 2020. The more realistic path to the Supreme Court runs through a final damages judgment, which would let the league bundle its liability arguments, including its position on the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961, with any challenge to the new award.

The Sports Broadcasting Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1291, exempts from the antitrust laws a league's pooled sale of rights to "sponsored telecasting," the free, over-the-air broadcasts on CBS and Fox. The plaintiffs' theory has always been that the exemption stops there and does not protect the decision to sell every out-of-market game exclusively through one premium pay package. The jury accepted that theory in 2024, and nothing in the Oct. 30 decision disturbed the liability finding built on it.

What does the Sunday Ticket ruling mean for expert testimony and Rule 702?

The ruling is a pointed reminder that Rule 702 is a gatekeeping rule, not a second chance to reweigh evidence after the jury has spoken. The December 1, 2023 amendments to Rule 702 clarified that the proponent of expert testimony must show by a preponderance of the evidence that the opinion rests on sufficient facts, reliable methods and a reliable application of those methods; defense counsel have since cited the amendment as a mandate for more aggressive exclusion. The Sunday Ticket panel accepted that the gate exists but held that a trial judge who admitted the testimony, watched it tested by cross-examination, and then excluded it after an adverse verdict had crossed from gatekeeping into fact-finding.

That framing matters because a post-verdict exclusion is uniquely powerful. Under Weisgram v. Marley Co., 528 U.S. 440 (2000), a court that finds expert testimony inadmissible after trial may enter judgment as a matter of law if the remaining evidence is insufficient, rather than ordering a new trial. In a damages-heavy antitrust case or a mass tort that depends on general causation experts, that is a case-ending move. The Ninth Circuit's opinion makes the move harder to sustain where the criticisms go to the weight of the expert's assumptions, such as the choice of a benchmark market, rather than to a methodological defect the jury could not evaluate.

The opinion also illustrates the line between admissible expert testimony and a jury verdict that departs from it. A court can respect the experts and still conclude that the jury did not follow its instructions. That is the lane the NFL kept open, and it is a reminder to plaintiffs' counsel that a winning model is only as good as the verdict form and instructions that translate it into a number.

What it means for MDL counsel, defendants and funders

For plaintiffs' MDL and class counsel. The decision gives counsel in any Ninth Circuit trial, including MDL bellwether trials, a clear citation against post-verdict Daubert Challenge rulings that recast impeachment points as reliability failures. It also counsels discipline in closing: a jury that improvises its own arithmetic, as the Sunday Ticket jurors apparently did with the $294.00 list price and the $102.74 average, hands the defense a new-trial argument even when liability is secure. Damages instructions and verdict forms tied tightly to the admitted models are the lesson.

For defendants. Rule 702 motions are most durable before trial. Waiting to press reliability challenges until after a verdict invites exactly the abuse-of-discretion holding the NFL received. The parallel lesson is that the conditional new-trial ruling under Rule 50(c) is not a formality; it is what preserved the league's damages win when the judgment as a matter of law fell.

For litigation funders and portfolio investors. A decade-old case with a reinstated liability verdict but no damages judgment is a long-duration asset. The retrial, any further appeal, and potential Supreme Court proceedings could push resolution well beyond 2027. Funders underwriting large antitrust and mass tort trials should price the risk that a favorable verdict is split on appeal into a liability win and a damages do-over, a pattern that resets the clock without resetting the expert record.

For sports leagues and media rights buyers. The reinstated liability finding stands as a jury determination that one league's exclusive premium out-of-market model, as structured through 2022, violated Section 1 of the Sherman Act. Other leagues' packages are not bound by it, but the finding will be cited in any future challenge to pooled rights sold outside free over-the-air broadcasting.

What happens next in the Sunday Ticket case?

The mandate will issue after the period for rehearing petitions runs, and the case will return to the Central District of California for a damages-only retrial. The district court will set a schedule, resolve any renewed motions on the scope of damages evidence, and frame new instructions. The plaintiffs' experts will testify again; the liability finding will be read to the new jury as established. Any resulting award will be trebled, and the NFL's appeal rights on both liability and damages will ripen once judgment is entered.

FAQ

Was the $4.7 billion Sunday Ticket verdict reinstated?

No. The Ninth Circuit reinstated the jury's finding that the NFL violated antitrust law, but it affirmed the order for a new trial on damages, so the $4.7 billion award is vacated and a new jury will set the amount.

What did the Ninth Circuit decide in the Sunday Ticket appeal?

On Oct. 30, 2026 the court held that Judge Philip Gutierrez abused his discretion by excluding the plaintiffs' economists after trial, reversed the judgment as a matter of law for the NFL, affirmed the conditional new-trial order on damages, and remanded for a damages-only retrial.

How much could the NFL owe in the Sunday Ticket lawsuit?

The amount is undetermined until a new jury rules, and any award will be trebled under the Clayton Act; the original roughly $4.7 billion award would have become about $14.12 billion after trebling.

Who is in the Sunday Ticket class, and do subscribers need to file a claim?

The class includes about 2.4 million residential subscribers and 48,000 businesses that bought Sunday Ticket on DirecTV for the 2011–2022 seasons; there is no settlement or claims process, so no action is needed now.

Can the NFL take the Sunday Ticket case to the Supreme Court?

It can petition, but the Supreme Court rarely reviews a case before final judgment, so a realistic certiorari petition will likely wait until a damages judgment is entered after the retrial.

Why does the Sunday Ticket ruling matter beyond football?

It limits a trial judge's ability to exclude admitted expert testimony after an adverse verdict and then enter judgment for the defendant, a tactic that can end antitrust class actions and mass tort bellwether trials alike.