NBA Beats Video Privacy Suit Twice On a Rule Even the Judge Applying It Doesn’t Believe In
A federal appeals panel signaled this month that it will likely hand the National Basketball Association (NBA) its second consecutive win in a long-running privacy lawsuit over fan-tracking advertising technology, but not without one sitting judge publicly disagreeing with the legal standard compelling that result.
On June 16, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit heard oral argument in Salazar v. National Basketball Association, the latest chapter in a class action Michael Salazar filed against the league in September 2022.[1] Salazar alleges the NBA violated the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA) by installing Meta’s tracking pixel on NBA.com and disclosing his video-viewing history to Facebook without his consent.[2] The argument marks Salazar’s second trip to the Second Circuit in this case and comes after the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York dismissed his claims for a second time in October 2025.
Sports Litigation Alert has followed this saga from the outset, tracking the case from its original dismissal, through the parallel fight over similar allegations against the NFL, to the district court’s second dismissal of Salazar’s claims last fall.[3]
Third Time’s A Charm?
The litigation has already produced one significant ruling. In October 2024, the Second Circuit reversed the district court’s initial dismissal and held that Salazar qualified as a “consumer” under the VPPA based on his free newsletter subscription,even though he never paid nor formally subscribed to NBA.com’s video content.[4] That decision broke from the narrower reading several other courts had applied and significantly expanded the pool of plaintiffs who could bring VPPA claims against companies using tracking pixels.[5] Notably, the panel flagged that a harder question remained, what counts as “personally identifiable information” (PII), which foreshadowed exactly what is playing out in this case now.[6]The NBA petitioned the Supreme Court to review that holding, but the Court denied certiorari in December 2025.[7]
With the consumer question resolved in Salazar’s favor, the case returned to the district court to address the harder element of the VPPA claim, i.e. whether the information disclosed to Meta actually qualified as PII.
[1] Oral Argument, Salazar v. Nat’l Basketball Ass’n, No. 25-2478 (2d Cir., June 16, 2026), https://www.courtlistener.com/audio/105514/salazar-v-national-basketball-association/.
[2] Salazar v. Nat’l Basketball Ass’n, No. 22 Civ. 07935, 2025 WL 2830939, at *1 (S.D.N.Y. Oct. 6, 2025).
[3] See e.g., Consumer’s Privacy Claim Against NBA and Its Website Rejected, Sports Litig. Alert (Oct. 20, 2023); NFL Stuffs Plaintiff at the Goal Line in Video Privacy Protection Act Case, Sports Litig. Alert (Nov. 29, 2024); Consumer’s Privacy Claim Against NBA and Its Website Rejected, Again, Sports Litig. Alert (Oct. 31, 2025).
[4] Salazar v. Nat’l Basketball Ass’n, 118 F.4th 533 (2d Cir. 2024).
[5] See Gardner v. Me-TV Nat’l Ltd. P’ship, 132 F.4th 1022 (7th Cir. 2025) (following the usual broad reading of the Act); But see Salazar v. Paramount Glob., 133 F.4th 642 (6th Cir. 2025) (rejecting the Second Circuit’s approach).
[6]Salazar, 118 F.4th at 548–49.
[7] Nat’l Basketball Ass’n v. Salazar, No. 24-994, cert. denied (U.S. Dec. 8, 2025) (drawing amicus support from the NFL and the National Retail Federation).
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