NFL loss in Sunday Ticket trial could lead to Dallas Cowboys benefiting in a serious financial way
NFL loss in Sunday Ticket trial could lead to Dallas Cowboys benefiting in a serious financial way
The Dallas Cowboys are America’s Team. No other show in town, no other team in all of sports (certainly domestically in the United States) garners the attention that Jerry Jones’ Cowboys do. We see this to be true in a number of different ways every year ranging from jersey sales to tickets bought for games at AT&T Stadium. But there is one significant area where they dominate.
Television.
Generally speaking the NFL dominates television in general, the Dallas Cowboys just happen to lead the way. In a given year most of the top broadcasts on television period are NFL games and the Cowboys are usually in the mix for most of them, especially their Thanksgiving Day contest.
It is because of this that the Cowboys are always broadcast to a majority of the country for their games if they are not a national contest. But even with this as the case, there are still instances in which many people (lots of them participants here at BTB) are unable to watch them because they live out of market.
A long time ago the NFL came up with a “solution” to this problem - Sunday Ticket. If you live out of market for your favorite team you have been able to purchase the Ticket which grants you the ability to see whatever game you like. The catch has always been that the Ticket is very expensive and you have to buy the entire thing, even if you are only interested in obtaining viewing rights for one specific team as we came up with as an example.
That catch upset a lot of consumers and they decided to do something about it. Recently the situation was taken all the way to trial where the NFL had Jerry Jones and even Roger Goodell testify on their behalf. It was that serious.
As fate would have it the league was right to view it that way because they just lost.
The NFL’s loss in the Sunday Ticket trial could lead to serious financial gain for the Dallas Cowboys
For starters, the NFL announced that they will “certainly contest” the verdict handed down by the jury on Thursday. You know, the verdict that they lost. But it is important to note this now given that circumstances could change.
What are those circumstances, exactly? The NFL was ordered to pay $4 billion which, as many noted, under federal antitrust law is tripled. Do the math. That is $12 billion.
It is not hard to see why the NFL wants these results to be changed/overturned. Odds are that you are not upset on the league’s behalf that they lost this particular trial. In fact, odds are that if you are not a Cowboys fan in the local market that on some level this overall situation has impacted you. Maybe you had to go to a friend’s house or a bar or restaurant or something in order to watch a game or multiple games. Those situations can be difficult which is why the Ticket in theory is a good idea.
But the plaintiffs in this case argued (it would appear successfully) that this was done in a manner along the lines of collusion. By making the Ticket so expensive the league effectively discouraged people from purchasing it which forced people to settle for the game that was distributed to them locally. Maybe you have found yourself in a situation where someone said “let’s just watch this game since we have it.” That is why we are where we are.
While the league will likely take this as high as they possibly can, it appears that some sort of change to the format of the Sunday Ticket could be on its way to consumers. Mark Schofield wrote about the verdict at SB Nation and noted the possibilities moving forward.
What might this mean for the league and its fans?
Beyond the dollar amount, which will drive the headlines, many analysts and experts theorize that this decision paves the way for single-team packages. For example, the residential class of plaintiffs, who were purchasing “Sunday Ticket” for use at home, were often fans of an out-of-market NFL team. As an example, consider a New England Patriots fan living in the Baltimore, Maryland market. The only way to watch most Patriots games is to purchase “Sunday Ticket.”
Now, that fan might theoretically have access to a “Patriots Package” as part of “Sunday Ticket.”
For the commercial plaintiffs, this could open the door to a competitive service along with “Sunday Ticket,” which could allow those establishments to pay lower prices to view broadcasts of every NFL game.
There will be more to come on this matter, including the league’s appeal and any post-trial motions, in the days and weeks to come.
The example given here involved the New England Patriots, but imagine this world as it would exist which means that every team would have their own “package” of sorts. Now go further into this hypothetical as a Dallas Cowboys fan, specifically if you are not local. Would you not just pay for a Cowboys package so that you can have all of the Cowboys games you want and need? Given the team’s popularity they clearly stand to gain the most of any across the league because people will want that package. Stop me if you have heard this before, but Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys stand to gain among the most from this whole situation.
To be clear this idea is not lost on Jerry. During his testimony he noted that he stood to gain a lot and even named a team specifically in the Cincinnati Bengals that Dallas would do better than.
Jerry is on the side of things (the owners and the league) that just lost the battle. But he may be on the side that wins the war.