MLB agrees to concessions settling TV broadcasts antitrust suit
On the day the case was scheduled for trial in a federal courtroom in New York, Major League Baseball settled a class-action antitrust lawsuit claiming that baseball's longtime practice of carving the nation into media markets for TV broadcasts was anti-competitive and hurt fans.
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On the day the case was scheduled for trial in a federal courtroom in New York, Major League Baseball settled a class-action antitrust lawsuit claiming that baseball's longtime practice of carving the nation into media markets for TV broadcasts was anti-competitive and hurt fans.
Tuesday's settlement left intact Major League Baseball's exclusive geographical territories for TV broadcasts and online streaming - Philadelphia remains a Phillies TV market - but the league agreed to concessions estimated to be worth tens of millions of dollars to consumers over time in lower prices for baseball packages.
Beginning in the spring, Major League Baseball will lower the price of its MLB.TV out-of-market game package to $109.99 a season, from $129.99, lead plaintiffs' attorney Ned Diver said Tuesday. Diver is a partner with the Philadelphia firm Langer Grogan & Diver.
The out-of-market package makes available to baseball fans all of the teams outside their home media markets. In Philadelphia, that would be all games other than Phillies games.
Major League Baseball also agreed to offer an $84.99 package that allows a fan to follow one out-of-market team for a season - for instance, a Phillies fan who wanted to follow a second team could pay the $84.99 to watch the Mets or the Nationals for a season.
Under the current system, the Phillies fan would have had to buy the $129.99 MLB.TV package for all out-of-market teams to follow just one.
The league has agreed to the lower prices for the 2016 season. The games can be streamed on a smartphone or tablet, or viewed on television.
"This is great for consumers because it gives them greater choices at lower prices," Diver said.
Major League Baseball has to offer the $109.99 and $84.99 packages at the agreed-upon prices for five years, with the exception of increases tied to inflation, he said.
The trial before U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin in New York could have lasted two weeks. Comcast, which owns regional sports networks through its NBCUniversal subsidiary, was a defendant, in addition to baseball and other regional sports networks.
Scheindlin will have to approve the settlement.
"We can confirm that a settlement of the . . . case has been reached. Because the process remains ongoing, it is not appropriate to comment further at this time," Major League Baseball said Tuesday.
Some believed that MLB's media market structure could have been dismantled if the league lost at trial - a potentially painful economic blow for baseball and TV-rights holders.
In 2015, the National Hockey League settled a parallel lawsuit making the same claims. Diver also was the lead attorney in the NHL case. Consumers could save more than $100 million over time in lower prices for games based on the hockey and baseball settlements, according to estimates.
"If we had gone to trial, there are always risks of losing, and if we won, it certainly would have been appealed, and this could have gone on for years," Diver said.
The legal actions contended that as sports leagues have divided the nation into media markets, fans have been left out in the cold by paying high cable bills to watch local games and having to buy expensive all-inclusive league packages to follow teams outside their home markets.
A contention in the Philadelphia area is that Phillies fans are virtually forced to subscribe to Comcast or Verizon's FiOS service to watch the Phillies because the games are not available on Dish or DirecTV.
This settlement does not address this "in-market" issue.
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