The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the liability finding in the Sunday Ticket class action on Friday, October 30, 2026, reversing a 2024 decision by Los Angeles-based US District Judge Philip Gutierrez that had wiped out a jury’s $4.7 billion award.
The same three-judge panel ordered a new trial limited to damages. The NFL has lost the fight over whether it broke the law, but still gets another chance to shrink the final bill.
Writing for the panel, Judge Anthony D. Johnstone held that the trial judge had abused his discretion by shutting out expert testimony from two of the subscribers’ witnesses. Expert “opinions are neither unfounded nor unreliable merely because they are impeachable”, the opinion said, a question for jurors, not the court, to weigh.
How a jury got to $4.7 billion
Sunday Ticket is the package that bundles out-of-market NFL games, the Sunday afternoon fixtures not shown in a viewer’s local television area. For nearly three decades it was sold exclusively through DirecTV.
Read also: Kimi Antonelli break down in tears as he became F1 world champion
The class action, brought on behalf of about 2.4 million residential subscribers and 48,000 bars, restaurants and other commercial customers covering the 2011 through 2022 seasons, argued the NFL and its broadcast partners had conspired to inflate the price by funneling the games through a single provider.
A jury in Los Angeles agreed in June 2024, awarding $4,610,331,671.74 to residential subscribers and $96,928,272.90 to commercial customers. Under US antitrust law those damages are automatically trebled, which would put the league on the hook for more than $14 billion if the figure survives. Weeks later Gutierrez vacated the award, ruling the subscribers’ damages model was unsupported by admissible evidence.
What changes for fans
Sunday Ticket moved to YouTube in 2023 under a seven-year distribution deal, and the 2026-27 season has pushed it further outside the US. For the first time, YouTube is selling the full Sunday Ticket package in international markets including the United Kingdom, Germany and Canada, where it is being folded into NFL Game Pass International.
Prices in the US start at $240 for new YouTube subscribers for the 2026-27 season, with existing YouTube TV customers paying $378 on top of their regular monthly bill. Nothing in Friday’s ruling affects that pricing: the appellate decision is about past seasons, not current programming.
Read also: More bad news for Bayern Munich as Michael Olise adds to growing concerns
NFL weighs further review
The NFL said in a statement it was “disappointed by the decision” and was weighing further court review, defending the current distribution set-up as the most fan-friendly in sports and entertainment. A full-court en banc rehearing at the Ninth Circuit, or a petition to the US Supreme Court, are both still open to the league.
Until that happens the case heads back to the Central District of California for a damages-only retrial, with the finding that the NFL violated federal antitrust law left standing.
Read also: ‘Why did he do it?’ Graham Barber backs Mateta’s red card at Tottenham
