Win for Fans in NFL Super Bowl Ticket Class Action Lawsuit

Top Class Actions’s website and social media posts use affiliate links. If you make a purchase using such links, we may receive a commission, but it will not result in any additional charges to you. Please review our Affiliate Link Disclosure for more information.

In a precedential opinion, a Third Circuit reversed a lower court’s decision to dismiss a class action lawsuit alleging that by failing to print enough tickets for the 2014 Super Bowl, the National Football League falsely inflated prices in violation of New Jersey State law.

Lead plaintiff Josh Finkelman claimed in his 2014 class action lawsuit that the NFL illegally tried to squeeze extra money out of fans by creating an artificial shortage of tickets. He alleged that he and other football fans were forced to pay huge amounts on resold tickets.

The NFL’s failure to print enough tickets, alleged the plaintiff, violated New Jersey consumer protection laws.

The NFL class action has undergone a mountain of litigation since it was first filed. The complaint was initially rejected by lower courts and the Third Circuit because the plaintiff failed to establish that the NFL’s failure to print enough tickets resulted in the high price of the resold tickets.

The NFL maintained throughout the litigation that the class action claims are based on the hugely inflated prices for the football game, not the inability of Class Members to find tickets at face value.

The NFL class action lawsuit was amended to include an expert opinion by an economist linking the inflated ticket prices to the NFL’s failure to provide 95 percent of tickets available to the public. According to the plaintiff, the NFL only made one percent of all 2014 Super Bowl tickets available to the general public.

While the Third Circuit saved the class action lawsuit from dismissal, it will still face the New Jersey Supreme Court. The state Supreme Court will hash out whether New Jersey ticket laws cover the NFL’s actions for the 2014 Super Bowl tickets.

“Finkelman did not just allege that prices would be lower on the secondary market were it not for the NFL’s withholding,” noted the Third Circuit opinion. “Instead, Finkelman alleged a causal chain justifying why the NFL’s withholding set into motion a series of events that ultimately raised prices on the secondary market.”

The Third Circuit did note that the economic theory the class action claims are based on may include assumptions; however, the Circuit court noted that at this point the theory was enough to establish standing for the Class Members in court.

The Third Circuit also noted that if the NFL class action lawsuit was successful, the price of tickets would be reduced for the general public.

According to the NFL class action lawsuit, the New Jersey consumer protection law relating to tickets available to the general public addresses just this situation. The law, according to the NFL class action, was meant to curb secondary markets and mark-ups for tickets to events. The New Jersey law is unique – no other state has a statute protecting the general public from huge mark-ups on secondary markets for tickets to events.

Finkelman is represented by Bruce Nagel, Greg Kohn and Diane E. Sammons of Nagel Rice LLP.

The NFL Super Bowl Ticket Class Action Lawsuit is Josh Finkelman v. National Football League, Case No. 16-4087, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

UPDATE: On Jan. 9, 2019, New Jersey Supreme Court justices handed down a decision in an NFL class action lawsuit that the 2014 Super Bowl ticket public lottery was not a state statutory violation.