In Garber et al. v. Office of the Commissioner of Baseball et al., a group of baseball fans launched a putative class action against Major League Baseball Enterprises Inc., the Office of the Commissioner of Baseball, several baseball clubs, and several cable and Internet providers, including Comcast and Directv LLC, claiming their live-game video offerings violate antitrust laws. The plaintiffs claim that the defendants created an illegal monopoly over the availability of live baseball games online or on television that allows them to inflate their prices. According to the complaint, the only way fans can watch teams and games that are not in their geographic areas is by purchasing “out of market” package online or through a cable or satellite provider. However, local games are not available through the “out of market” package, forcing fans who want to watch local games to subscribe to a cable package that includes channels that carry the local team’s games. The suit also claims that defendants have colluded to sell the “out of market” packages only through the league. This enables them to exploit their allegedly illegal monopoly by charging sky-high prices, and force subscribers to buy all “out of market” games, even if the subscriber is only interested in one team or one game.
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