NHL Broadcast Antitrust Class Action Settlement Gets Final OK

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On Sept. 1, a nonmonetary NHL class action settlement was approved by a New York federal judge, which would resolve claims that the National Hockey League conspired to drive up the price of broadcast rights for hockey games. The plaintiffs’ attorneys were also awarded $6.5 million in fees and expenses in this deal, which will be paid by the defending sports league.

An order of final approval of the NHL class action settlement was issued by U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin and will lay to rest plaintiffs’ and Class claims that the NHL forced hockey fans to pay excessive charges in order to watch hockey games that were “out-of-market.” Per the terms of the NHL settlement, the hockey league will be required to implement price cuts as well as offer various subscription options to hockey fans.

When the NHL class action settlement was first announced in June, just a month after being granted Class certification by Judge Scheindlin, only 10 of the 718,000 Class Members affected by the deal objected to the terms of the agreement. Despite these objections, the settlement went forward and was given preliminary approval by the judge in mid-June.

The order for final approval of the NHL class action settlement arrived just a day after both parties involved in the class action lawsuit appeared in court to vouch for the appropriateness of the proposed settlement. According to one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, the settlement to the NHL class action lawsuit would potentially provide Class Members $21 million to $28 million in value by requiring NHL and its partners to lower the prices of its streaming game packages and to provide better game-watching options to hockey fans.

This antitrust class action lawsuit was originally filed against the NHL, Comcast, and DirecTV in 2012, claiming that the streaming packages were inflated and did not give consumers many choices as to which hockey games they could watch in their region, violating antitrust statutes by barring competing broadcasts from other hockey teams.

Thanks to the NHL antitrust class action settlement, the NHL must also offer “unbundled” GameCenter Live streaming options to consumers for the next five years, which will allow sports fans to buy single-team streaming packages at a price that is 20 percent cheaper than what the NHL charges for a standard bundled game package. Furthermore, for the coming hockey season, the NHL will offer bundled packages at a 17.5 percent lower price. Comcast and DirecTV, NHL’s streaming partners, have agreed to give consumers three weeks of free access to the NHL Center Ice package for the next two hockey seasons.

The plaintiffs are represented by Langer Grogan & Diver PC, Klein Kavanagh Costello LLP, Boni & Zack LLC, Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, Kohn Swift & Graf PC, Motley Rice LLC and Pomerantz LLP.

The NHL Class Action Lawsuit is Thomas Laumann, et al. v. National Hockey League, et al., Case No. 1:12-cv-01817, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.