The Super Bowl has undoubtedly been the pinnacle of American broadcasting every year for decades, with this year’s upcoming bout between the Kansas City Cheifs and the Philadelphia Eagles proving to be no exception. The National Football League made $13 billion in 2023, and is a major player in multiple different industries beyond simply athletics, touching broadcasting, merchandising, and more.
The National Football League has been involved in about 440 federal lawsuits in the last decade, Docket Alarm analytics show. The league faced an elevated amount of litigation in the mid 2010s, driven largely by class action antitrust cases concerning the NFL Sunday TIcket package, an offering that allows fans to view out-of-market football games.
The lawsuit was filed in late 2015, and alleged that the NFL and the 32 member teams have illegally colluded to restrict competition for NFL broadcasts, by centralizing the sale of broadcasting rights among the individually owned and operated teams. The long-running case reached trial in summer of 2024, where the jury warded a verdict of nearly $5 billion. However, the judge ruled in favor of the NFL as a matter of law, claiming improper expert witness testimony. The case is on appeal as of this writing.
Another recent antitrust case concerns the relocation of the Raiders franchise from Oakland, California to Las Vegas, Nevada. The City of Oakland alleged in its 2018 lawsuit that the league illegally restrained competition through the relocation process, unfairly incentivizing the team to relocate rather than stay in Oakland. The City’s complaint was dismissed, and by 2022 had been denied certiorari by the Supreme Court.
Beyond antitrust, the next most frequently filed case type is trademark, with 37 cases filed. In these cases, the NFL is often the plaintiff, and sometimes even collaborates with the other major sports leagues to bring suit against unidentified defendants for selling counterfeit goods.
In the last decade, the primary firms representing the NFL are Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld.
Because NFL teams are independently owned and operated, the true federal litigation footprint of professional football goes well beyond the NFL itself. If lawsuits were to translate to points during the Super Bowl, the Kansas City Chiefs have an edge on the Philadelphia Eagles. Kansas City Chiefs Football Club was involved in 26 federal suits in the last decade, and Philadelphia Eagles, LLC was involved with just 7. Both companies, and other NFL franchises, have been mainly represented by Covington & Burling.
