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A California jury has found the US National Football League violated antitrust laws and ordered it to pay $4.7bn in damages to customers who bought a package of its live games over satellite television, in a landmark case that could reshape the market for sports rights distribution.

The verdict comes in a federal class-action lawsuit brought by subscribers to the NFL’s Sunday Ticket package, who alleged the league’s out-of-market games violated antitrust rules by restricting competition for certain Sunday afternoon fixtures to pay-TV.

The case, which was tried in a federal court in Los Angeles, may have wide-reaching consequences for how live sports rights are bundled. It also delivers a significant blow to the world’s richest sports league, as the fines could be tripled under US federal antitrust law.

The NFL said it was “disappointed” with the verdict. “We continue to believe that our media distribution strategy . . . is by far the most fan friendly distribution model in all of sports and entertainment.” It said it would “contest” the verdict and maintained the claims were “baseless and without merit”.

In 1961, US Congress passed the Sports Broadcasting Act, which gives professional sports leagues such as the NFL an exemption from antitrust laws in order to pool sales of its media broadcast rights. Underpinning the act is the idea that professional teams including the Dallas Cowboys and the New York Giants operate as franchises of one business unit — the league — and as such media distribution of their fixtures is not in competition with one another.

Still, there are four time zones across the continental US, and the majority of NFL fixtures take place simultaneously on Sunday afternoons. That has created demand for so-called out-of-network games, which the league sells as its Sunday Ticket package. Viewers can watch fixtures of local teams on their regional Fox or CBS free-to-air network, but must purchase Sunday Ticket to watch games outside their home markets.

Underscoring the seriousness of the case and its implication for the future of live sports rights, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and Cowboys owner Jerry Jones were among the witnesses testifying for the league during the trial. Goodell told the jury it was the first time he has presented under oath in a federal courtroom since he began his term in 2006, according to a report from the Associated Press.

The league maintained Sunday Ticket is a premium product with premium pricing, and as such would not undercut viewership for free-to-air local games. The package costs between $349 and $449 per year, depending on whether consumers have a subscription with distributor YouTube TV. Sunday Ticket was distributed by satellite provider DirecTV from 1994 until 2023, when the league awarded the rights to Google’s YouTube TV in a record $14bn contract.

The lawsuit was brought by a San Francisco sports bar called the Mucky Duck in 2015 and has since been expanded to a class-action representing millions of subscribers and tens of thousands of similar establishments. The plaintiffs have highlighted, among other evidence, a 2017 internal NFL memo titled “New Frontier”, which suggested the league could divvy up Sunday fixtures across cable channels rather than pool them to satellite TV.

Unlike other US professional leagues, including Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association, NFL teams do not offer individual TV packages. In his trial testimony, Cowboys owner Jones said he was “completely against each team doing TV deals”, according to the AP, despite the fact that a theoretical direct-to-consumer offering for his team — estimated to be worth $9bn by Forbes, the most valuable professional club in global sport — would likely rake in subscriptions.

Jacumba Valley, Calif. — Encounters between U.S. Customs and Border Patrol and migrants crossing the southern border without authorization decreased by 40% in the three weeks since new asylum restrictions took effect.

In announcing the executive actions on June 4, President Biden said these measures were needed to bring “order to the border.”

His administration points to the latest statistics as proof that the new policies are succeeding.

“The president’s actions are working because of their tough response to illegal crossings,” Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said at a press conference in Tucson, Arizona on Wednesday.

“We are removing more noncitizens without a legal basis to stay here.”

But the number of people arrested while attempting to cross the border declined over the past five months, and not all of that is attributable to U.S. policy. Mexico also scaled up its enforcement and has been stopping migrants from trekking north toward the U.S.

Mayorkas says the administration has doubled the number of expedited removals in the last three weeks, with more than 100 international repatriation flights to 20 countries. 

According to the DHS, arrests haven’t been this low since January 2021.

Crossings are fewer but still hazardous for those who make the journey

So far on the California border, there’s been a noticeable shift: up until last month, the San Diego sector had been the place with most undocumented migrant crossings.

A migrant woman and her nine-year-old hold each other as they wait for border patrol agents in Dulzara, California. The family of three migrated from Ecuador and is hoping to seek asylum in the U.S. June 25, 2024.

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A sandal can be seen through the busses of the desert in Dulzura, California, on June 24, 2024.

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A couple of migrants wait to be processed by border patrol agents in Dulzara, California on June 25, 2024.

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Just weeks ago, hundreds of migrants still waited in campsites scattered throughout California’s Jacumba Valley, a remote area 80 miles east of San Diego. There, they could wait to be picked up by Border Patrol and petition for asylum.

Lately, these locations look mostly empty, and makeshift tents flap in the wind. But some people still cross the border and end up here — including a family with three small children NPR encountered at one of the sweltering desert camps.

One of the children, a 7-year-old, was seriously dehydrated and seemed about to pass out. As humanitarian volunteers gave him first aid, the child’s parents explained that the family had walked for eight hours through the desert.

The journey was challenging– they evaded snakes and mountain lions– but staying in their native Mexico was not an option.

The family owns an auto repair shop in the southern state of Michoacán, where they were extorted and feared for their lives.

The mother, Jazmin Mora, says the family first fled to Tijuana, hoping to make it to the United States where they have family. But after just one month in the Mexican border city, they encountered violence there too, so they decided to try to cross.

A mattress at the southern border in Jacumba Hot Springs, California, on June 24, 2024.

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Jazmin Mora puts a cold patch on her forehead to cool down as she and her family wait for border patrol agents in Jacumba Hot Springs, California on June 24, 2024.

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A border patrol agent approaches the informal migrant camp in Jacumba Hot Springs, California, as a child washes her hands on June 24, 2024.

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“We moved around to several other places, but the reality is all Mexico is unsafe for everybody,” said Mora.

Her family’s story embodies what immigration analysts have told NPR about the newer border measures: deterrence policies alone do not work to curtail undocumented immigration in the long run.

Implications for the U.S. presidential election

Although the Biden administration touts these policies as a success, migrants continue to arrive at the border, although they stay on the Mexican side to ‘wait and see’ when to cross.

The announcement of lower numbers of border encounters and higher numbers of removals comes just before the first presidential debate on Thursday, in which immigration is expected to be front and center.

Far away from the politics of Washington D.C., neither migrants nor the locals had much to say about the border policies. They told NPR they see it as politics as usual –no real, lasting solutions.

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

The US Supreme Court has invalidated a measure in Purdue Pharma’s bankruptcy that would shield members of the company’s founding Sackler family from future civil liability in exchange for a $6bn contribution, in a closely watched case involving the maker of the opioid OxyContin.

The Department of Justice had sought to invalidate the comprehensive liability releases granted to the Sacklers, saying they could not be justified under existing US law. The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed in a 5-4 ruling.

But the high court’s majority stressed that its decision was a “narrow one” that did not “call into question consensual third-party releases offered in connection with a bankruptcy reorganisation plan”.

This is a developing story