NFL Wins Motion To Dismiss In Unusual Social Media Antitrust Case
By Jeff Birren, Senior Writer
A modern twist on an old axiom is that those with the gold get sued in today’s sports’ world. A recent example just played out when two NFL fans sued the NFL and NFL Enterprises for supposedly violating federal antitrust law by allowing fans to gain free access to team updates on “X” but “barred” teams from posting on “Bluesky Social BBC.” Patrick Brown and Collin Vincent prefer to receive the identical information from Bluesky. They claimed that the defendants’ behavior was an “unreasonable restraint on trade that violated 15 U.S. C. 1”. The Court granted a motion to dismiss because the Amended Complaint “did not plausibly plead that Brown and Vincent suffered a cognizable injury in fact.” Patrick Brown and Collin Vincent v. National Football League, Inc. and NFL Enterprises, LLC, Opinion & Order, S.D.N.Y., Case 1:25-cv-01220-PAE (02-03-2026).
Background
The Court took its “Factual Background” “from the Amended Complaint” (“AC”). Brown and Vincent have Bluesky Social BBC (“Bluesky”) accounts and would follow NFL teams on Bluesky if that was permitted by the NFL. The NFL and X “have a ‘content partnership’” that “allows X to publish real-time highlights from football games”. “During the offseason, reporters post news about team practices and other related topics on X.” Fans can discuss team activities including free agency acquisitions “and other roster changes”. In 2024, there were more than one million posts concerning the annual player draft and “these appeared on users’ screens more than 800 million times.” Fans “do not pay to receive NFL news on X.”
Bluesky is “a microblogging platform that was founded to move ‘online discourse beyond the control of social media oligarchs.’” It “has more than 28 million users.” According to Brown and Vincent, “many” are “’Twitter refugees’ who left Twitter due to rapid changes to rules and culture under the ownership of Elon Musk.’” Initially, “multiple NFL teams” had accounts with Bluesky”. Bluesky “closely matches the functionality of X” and NFL teams could “’use it exactly the way they use X.’” Bluesky, like X, does not charge fans to “open accounts or view posts regarding the NFL.”
The AC does not allege when “individual teams used (or stopped using) Bluesky, or when the NFL instructed them to stop doing so.” Apparently, the NFL “instructed its member teams to delete their Bluesky accounts.” But for this instruction, “at least some NFL teams would use Bluesky.” The “Patriots vice president of content, Fred Kirsch, for example, has stated: ‘Whenever the NFL gives us the greenlight[,] we’ll get back on Bluesky.’”
Teams have accounts on other social media providers “but they tend not to use these to post the real-time updates they post on X”. The “result of the NFL’s alleged ban” on the use of Bluesky is that “Brown and Vincent must choose between receiving real-time updates uniquely available on X and foregoing such content.” This “content is important to fans who participate in fantasy football leagues” and who “compete against other, sometimes for monetary prizes, based on the players’ on-field performance.” There is no other “monetary consequence to fans from the NFL’s ban on Bluesky”, and fans “’do not pay money for their team’s news on X’ (or Bluesky), but instead ‘pay attention, which social media platforms … in turn monetize by advertising and by selling data.’”
The AC “implies” that Brown and Vincent “play fantasy football in leagues where money is at stake.” The information posted on X is “’exactly the sort of information relied upon in making decisions on fantasy football or other games of skill.’” Brown and Vincent “are injured … if they choose not to engage with X”. Brown and Vincent do not allege that they have “lost money in such leagues as a result of lack of access to real-time content uniquely accessible on X.”
To read Birren’s analysis of the court’s ruling in the April 2 issue of Sports Litigation Alert, visit the website to subscribe.