As part of its effort to defend against the narrow claims of the Sunday Ticket trial, the NFL painted with a very broad brush regarding the potential ramifications of teams having to sell their own TV rights.
In a nutshell, the league’s lawyers have suggested (via the evidence they presented) that a loss in this case would create a massive disparity in team revenues, implode the salary cap, destroy competitive balance, and eventually threaten the league’s existence.
When the NFL rested its case-in-chief, the plaintiffs called a rebuttal witness with the goal of making it clear that losing this specific case won’t bring down Big Shield.
Harvard professor Einer Elhauge testified that there’s no link between the NFL’s effort to protect CBS and Fox by overcharging for Sunday Ticket and competitive balance.
Via the Associated Press, Elhauge said that teams get roughly $62.5 million each annually from Sunday Ticket, and that the absence of that influx of cash wouldn’t impact the salary cap or the operating budgets of teams.
Of course, the league would still get its money for Sunday Ticket. The NFL might get even more, if the partner that buys the rights can sell the package for whatever it wants to charge — and however it wants to carve it up. The question would become whether the NFL would still get its same fees from CBS and Fox if consumers had the ability to get out-of-market games at a more affordable price, and in more creative ways: one team at a time, one week at a time, and/or one game at a time.
Regardless, the league will figure it out. It will have to, if it loses.
The notion that removing the NFL’s ability to engage in antitrust violations as to Sunday Ticket (or any other aspect of its business) will threaten the league’s entire business model is, frankly, laughable. But that’s the kind of stuff that gets thrown at the wall in situations like this. Skilled lawyers distract juries from inconvenient facts by suggesting unrealistic consequences.
It seems that the lawyers representing the plaintiffs — who were chided in open court last week by the presiding judge for overcomplicating the case — found a way to counter the most simple of misdirections attempted by the NFL.
Whether it works will come down to closing arguments and, after that, jury deliberations. We’ll know a lot more as soon as Wednesday.