The details remain incomplete and the procedure unspecified, but it appears that DirecTV is indeed making refunds available to customers who wish to rescind their NFL Sunday Ticket subscription due to the anthem controversy.
NFL spokesman Joe Lockhart told reporters during a Friday media briefing that DirecTV is offering a refund, but Lockhart said he doesn’t know how it’s being handled.
The Wall Street Journal previously explained (under a somewhat misleading headline) that customer-service representatives were sending mixed signals about the issue, an apparent example of the time-honored game of call-center roulette. Apparently, DirecTV has developed a more consistent and predictable approach -- or at least an approach as consistent and predictable as the process of getting money back from a major corporation ever can be.
Remember, this is a company that has paid out multiple class-action antitrust settlements in multiple sports arising from a failure to allow customers to purchase, for example, only those games involving certain teams or only games played on certain dates. It’s a for-profit enterprise committed to generating as much profit as possible; the notion that cash would be coughed up for anyone who claims they are offended by the anthem protests seems odd, especially since the anthem issue existed before the 2017 regular season began.
