NFL Sues Insurers Over Sunday Ticket Antitrust Litigation

As the NFL continues to battle with insurance companies that (spoiler alert) don’t want to pay benefits in connection with the concussion lawsuits and settlements, Big Shield has a new fight with Big Insurance over the availability of coverage for a Sunday Ticket antitrust action filed against the NFL in 2015.

Sports attorney Daniel Wallach revealed the lawsuit, filed last November, in a tweet. Wallach then forwarded to PFT the complaint and the more recent filing -- a document confirming that the insurance companies have until March 13 to respond to the lawsuit.

The generalities trace back to the origins of an industry based on taking money in and, under just the right circumstances, paying money out. When a company’s only product is money, it doesn’t want to give money away when it shouldn’t. It often doesn’t want to give money away when it should.

In this specific case, the NFL claims that insurance companies responsible for ‘excess’ coverage (in English, the NFL burned through its main insurance policy and then turned to backups) have refused to pay money that would cover attorneys’ fees and other expenses in defending against the still-pending antitrust case.

The NFL alleges that the excess coverage providers initially seemed to acknowledge the responsibility to provide coverage before changing their tune in 2021.