LOS ANGELES — A jury in U.S. District Court ordered the NFL to pay nearly $4.8 billion in damages Thursday after ruling that the league violated antitrust laws in distributing out-of-market Sunday afternoon games on a premium subscription service.

The jury awarded $4.7 billion in damages to the residential class and $96 million in damages to the commercial class. Since damages can be tripled under federal antitrust laws, the NFL could end up being liable for $14.39 billion.

The lawsuit covered 2.4 million residential subscribers and 48,000 businesses in the United States who paid for the package of out-of-market games from the 2011 through 2022 seasons on DirecTV. The lawsuit claimed the league broke antitrust laws by selling its package of Sunday games at an inflated price. The subscribers also say the league restricted competition by offering “Sunday Ticket” only on a satellite provider.

The NFL said it would appeal the verdict. That appeal would go to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and then possibly the Supreme Court.

Should the NFL end up paying damages, it could cost each of the 32 teams approximately $449.6 million.

“We are disappointed with the jury’s verdict today in the NFL Sunday Ticket class action lawsuit,” the league said in a statement. “We continue to believe that our media distribution strategy, which features all NFL games broadcast on free over-the-air television in the markets of the participating teams and national distribution of our most popular games, supplemented by many additional choices including RedZone, Sunday Ticket and NFL+, is by far the most fan friendly distribution model in all of sports and entertainment.

“We will certainly contest this decision as we believe that the class action claims in this case are baseless and without merit.”

The trial lasted three weeks and featured testimony from NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones.

“Justice was done. The verdict upholds protection for the consumers in our class. It was a great day for consumers,” plaintiffs attorney Bill Carmody said.

During his closing remarks, Carmody showed an April, 2017, NFL memo that showed the league was exploring a world without “Sunday Ticket” in 2017, where cable channels would air Sunday afternoon out-of-market games not shown on Fox or CBS.

The jury of five men and three women deliberated for nearly five hours before reaching its decision.

Judge Philip S. Gutierrez is scheduled to hear post-trial motions on July 31, including the NFL’s request to have him rule in favor of the league because the judge determined the plaintiffs did not prove their case.

Payment of damages, any changes to the “Sunday Ticket” package and/or the ways the NFL carries its Sunday afternoon games would be stayed until all appeals have been concluded.

The league maintained it had the right to sell “Sunday Ticket” under its antitrust exemption for broadcasting. The plaintiffs said that only covers over-the-air broadcasts and not pay TV.

Other professional sports leagues were also keeping an eye on this case since they also offer out-of-market packages. A major difference though is that MLB, the NBA and the NHL market their packages on multiple distributors and share in the revenue per subscriber instead of receiving an outright rights fee.

DirecTV had “Sunday Ticket” from its inception in 1994 through 2022. The league signed a seven-year deal with Google’s YouTube TV that began with the 2023 season.

The lawsuit was originally filed in 2015 by the Mucky Duck sports bar in San Francisco but was dismissed in 2017. Two years later, the 9th Circuit, which has jurisdiction over California and eight other states, reinstated the case. Gutierrez ruled last year the case could proceed as a class action.

Amid the current crop of summer movies, I can’t think of one that captures the feeling of summer more evocatively than Janet Planet. Much of the story takes place in a rustic house in woodsy Western Massachusetts; by day, sunlight streams in through enormous windows, and at night, chirping crickets flood the soundtrack. The celebrated playwright Annie Baker, here writing and directing her first film, has uncanny powers of observation and a talent for evoking time and place. She also has two memorable lead characters and a sharply funny and moving story to tell.

It’s the summer of 1991. The story begins when 11-year-old Lacy, played by the terrific newcomer Zoe Ziegler, calls her mom from camp and demands to be taken home early; her exact words are “I’m gonna kill myself if you don’t come get me.”

Lacy is a shy misfit with big owlish glasses and a flair for deadpan exaggeration. She and her single mom, Janet, who’s played by a subtly luminous Julianne Nicholson, are extremely close, as we can see when Janet duly comes to fetch Lacy and bring her home. Later at their house, Janet puts Lacy to bed and listens to her vent.

Baker isn’t one to hurry her characters along. Her plays — the best known of which is her Pulitzer-winning 2013 drama, The Flick — have been justly praised for bringing a new kind of naturalism to the stage, especially in the way the actors retain the stammers and silences of normal conversation. She brings that same sensibility to Janet Planet.

Baker includes a few loving nods to her background in theater; at various points, Lacy plays with a small puppet theater, complete with handmade clay figurines, and in a later scene, she and Janet attend an outdoor performance featuring actors in elaborate costumes. But the movie never feels stagey. It was shot on 16-millimeter film by Maria von Hausswolff, who previously filmed the visually stunning Icelandic drama Godland, and her use of natural light and precise, fine-grained details feel transportingly cinematic.

The movie is divided into three loose chapters, each one focused on a friend or significant other of Janet’s who becomes a houseguest for a spell. First up is her boyfriend Wayne, played by a gruff Will Patton, who has a daughter around Lacy’s age but doesn’t take too kindly to Lacy herself. He’s soon out the door.

In the second chapter we meet Regina, played by a wonderful Sophie Okonedo, a free-spirited drifter who comes to stay with Janet and Lacy after leaving a local hippie commune — basically a cult, though everyone is careful not to use that word. Regina initially brings a breath of fresh air into the house, though she proves insensitive and tactless, especially around Janet, and soon overstays her welcome.

The third houseguest — Avi, played by Elias Koteas — is Regina’s ex-partner and the leader of that hippie commune. Avi is the most mysterious presence in the movie, and it’s through his short-lived relationship with Janet that we fully grasp how profoundly unhappy she is.

The title Janet Planet has many meanings — it’s the name of the acupuncture studio that Janet operates out of the house. It’s also a passing reference to the nickname that Van Morrison gave the singer-songwriter Janet Rigsbee, who inspired a lot of his love songs during their five-year marriage. But the title is most meaningful as it frames our understanding of Janet, whose quiet magnetism really does seem to draw other people, especially men, into her orbit. As we see in Nicholson’s heartbreaking performance, it’s been as much a curse as it is a blessing.

One of the movie’s subtlest achievements is the way it clues us into Janet’s perspective, even as it keeps Janet herself at a bit of a distance. Much of the time we’re studying Janet through Lacy’s eyes, and what’s uncanny is the way Baker captures a sense of the girl’s growing disillusionment — that intensely specific moment when a child begins to see even a doting parent in a clear and not always flattering new light. By the end of Janet Planet, not much has happened, and yet something momentous seems to have taken place. You want Baker to return to these characters, to show us how Janet and Lacy continue to change and grow, together and apart, in the years — and the summers — to come.