And Now A Word From The Panel: Armchair Quarterback MDL?

Welcome to the latest edition of "And Now a Word from the Panel," a bimonthly column that "rides the circuit" with the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation as it meets at venues around the country.

With the year quickly drawing to a close, the panel heads to the panel chairperson's home venue, New Orleans, Louisiana, for what has become its post-Thanksgiving, first-Thursday-of-December hearing session.

With football season revving into high gear and on the heels of this column's recent discussion of a new sports (boxing) MDL, what better way to end off the year than the panel's consideration of yet another sports MDL petition. For the armchair quarterbacks among us, the panel considers at its December hearing session a series of antitrust actions arising from the NFL's Sunday afternoon out-of-market television package. And so as not to deflate your balloon (or football), there are even more potential sports MDLs on the horizon, including — what the last