Barring a last-minute settlement, the NFL’s biggest litigation in years will kick off with jury selection on June 5 --  in U.S. District Court in California. Plaintiffs claim the NFL’s tactic of bundling all the rights to out-of-market games together and selling them to a single entity, DirecTV (under the “Sunday Ticket” brand), violated antitrust laws. Damages could exceed $6 billion, and a trial would mean senior execs and owners testifying in open court, Ben Fischer of Sports Business Journal reports.
 
 Teams were briefed by league lawyers on the case in Nashville this week, and lawyers have spent the last two days proposing language for jury instructions to Judge Philip Gutierrez. One source says a settlement appears unlikely, with the plaintiffs and the league “too far apart” on a deal.
 
 Some of the NFL’s strategy is to look ahead to appeals, and the hope that it could get to the U.S. Supreme Court. There’s an authentic public policy question inside the case -- to what extent does the NFL’s antitrust exemption apply to media packages other than over-the-air broadcasts? The 1960 Sports Broadcasting Act simply didn’t envision satellite TV, and certainly not broadband internet.
 
 The case does not apply to the current “Sunday Ticket” deal with YouTube TV; just older deals with DirecTV.

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