ProFootballTalk’s Mike Florio is often known for passionate takes on a variety of NFL fronts. Some of his most interesting takes come on legal matters around the league, where he brings his knowledge from his past work as an attorney (he practiced law for 18 years), but also frequently stronger language and opinions than most legal commentators. The latest case of that came from his appearance on The Pat McAfee Show Friday, where he described Judge Philip S. Gutierrez’s ruling overturning the NFL Sunday Ticket jury award of $4.7 billion (which can be tripled under antitrust law) as “a crock of s***”:
“The jury found that Sunday Ticket as it’s currently sold is an antitrust violation..
The judge wouldn’t accept the evidence and that’s what happened in a nutshell” @ProFootballTalk #PMSLive pic.twitter.com/YLn82rWktQ
— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) August 2, 2024
The whole clip there has Florio arguing that Guiterrez’s post-trial ruling that the testimony of economic experts Dr. Daniel Rascher and Dr. John Yona on damages was faulty doesn’t work, because Gutierrez’s role as judge allowed him to block those experts in the first place. Some key lines there, starting around 0:33:
“The jury found that Sunday Ticket as it’s currently packaged and sold is an antitrust violation. The judge said there’s more than enough evidence in the record to support that finding. So, plain and simple, Sunday Ticket, as it’s currently constituted and as it’s been for more than 30 years, violates antitrust law. The problem is setting damages.
“And what you have to do, because we know what the real world is for an antitrust violation, it’s what everybody had to pay for Sunday Ticket. So you’ve got to construct this fake hypothetical world where we figure out what would have been paid for Sunday Ticket but for the antitrust violation. And that’s almost impossible to do.
“So the plaintiffs put that forward with expert witnesses that the judge decided were competent enough to testify at trial. He’s the gatekeeper for these witnesses. And everybody knows ahead of time what they’re going to say. And he let them do it. And then after the verdict, he says ‘Oh, sorry, they’re not good enough.’
“I mean, what the h***! Kick them out before the trial and say ‘You’d better find somebody else, or you’ve got no case.’ He waited until after the trial, after the verdict. And he said ‘I never should have let these guys testify.’ Which is really a crock of s*** if you’re any of the plaintiffs. I mean, that’s a legal term, I’m sorry. If you’re any of the plaintiffs in this case, it’s like ‘What the h***’?”
McAfee and co-host AJ Hawk both laughed at the ‘crock of s***’ line, and McAfee said afterwards “It sounds like it. Crock of s*** does sound like a legal term.’ Florio then concluded ‘Sunday Ticket violates antitrust law, but we’ve got no damages because the judge won’t accept the evidence on what the award would have looked like if there wasn’t an antitrust violation.”
There are definitely some complexities here, and some memories evoked of the 1986 USFL lawsuit, where a jury concluded the NFL violated antitrust law but awarded $1 (tripled to $3, raised to $3.76 with interest). And Florio (who’s written a lot on this, including pieces Friday analyzing the ruling and Guiterrez’s pending retirement) is far from alone in thinking that it’s odd how this played out, with Judge Gutierrez complaining about the plaintiffs’ case mid-trial, but allowing it to proceed to the jury, but then overruling the jury award. But he did offer some remarkable verbiage for a legal analyst here. We’ll see what’s next on this front, with the plaintiffs likely to appeal this ruling.
[The Pat McAfee Show on X/Twitter]
