• Selected
• Entire List

Abstract:
This article examines the split of authority regarding the single entity status of professional sports leagues under Section 1 of the Sherman Act. Specifically, this article argues that outside of labor disputes, sports leagues should be presumed to be single entities. Part I argues that professional sports leagues are single entities in disputes regarding league-wide, nonlabor policy. In particular, the focus of the Supreme Court's jurisprudence on economic reality rather than organizational form necessitates a finding that professional sports leagues are single entities in nonlabor disputes. Part II argues that professional sports leagues are not single entities for purposes of labor disputes; sports leagues, on the whole, do not possess a unity of interest for labor matters. More importantly, the existing precedent outside of the professional sports context carefully balancing the competing interests of labor and antitrust law should apply to professional sports. The article therefore concludes that a general classification scheme should be adopted in which professional sports leagues are presumed to be single entities, with an exception for labor disputes.

Sports Law, Single Entity Status, Copperweld, Sherman Act, Professional Sports Leagues, National Basketball Association, NBA, National Hockey League, NHL, National Football League, NFL, Major League Soccer, MLS, Antitrust Law, Labor Law

Abstract:
The National Football League ("NFL") has often attempted to avoid antitrust liability by asserting that the league constitutes a single entity, incapable of illegal collusion for purposes of section 1 of the Sherman Act. Viewed properly, the NFL and its member-teams are a single entity with respect to matters of non-labor policy. Not only do the league and its teams share a unity of interest, but the economic realities of professional football necessitate that the league and its teams be considered a single economic unit. However, most courts to consider the NFL's single entity defense have rejected the league's argument. These courts have improperly focused their analysis on trivial aspects of the NFL's league structure, while marginalizing the more relevant factors to be considered under the Supreme Court's decision in Copperweld.

Recently, the district court in American Needle diverged from these erroneous precedents, instead holding that the NFL is a single entity with respect to licensing of league trademarks. While American Needle represents a significant advance in NFL single entity jurisprudence, the opinion may nevertheless prove to be of limited precedential value. This article concludes that future courts considering the issue should follow the approach taken in American Needle, and find that the NFL is a single entity with respect to league nonlabor policy.

Sports Law, Single Entity Status, National Football League, NFL, Copperweld, American Needle, Antitrust law, Sherman Act

Abstract:
This essay reconsiders the Curt Flood Act of 1998 - Congress' first and only legislation curtailing Major League Baseball's longstanding and unique exemption from federal antitrust law - a little over a decade after its passage. The essay argues that although commentators were extremely skeptical of the efficacy of the Act at its time of passage, the legislation has nevertheless impacted the sport of baseball by changing the tenor of labor negotiations between Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association. By effectuating this change in labor relations, the essay concludes that the Curt Flood Act has helped to usher in baseball's longest sustained period of labor peace in nearly four decades.

Sports law, Professional Baseball, Curt Flood Act, Antitrust, Labor law, Major League Baseball, MLB

Abstract:
This article proposes a new analytical framework for determining the proper scope of professional baseball’s antitrust exemption, an issue that has generated surprisingly little scholarly analysis to date. Specifically, the article finds that lower courts have applied the exemption in widely divergent ways, due to a misunderstanding, and in some cases a misinterpretation, of the underlying focus of the United States Supreme Court’s opinions first creating and affirming the exemption. The article argues that future courts should reject the existing lower court precedent, and instead, consistent with the often overlooked focus of the Supreme Court’s decisions, hold that the baseball exemption protects only those activities directly related to the business of providing baseball entertainment to the public.

baseball, sports, MLB, sports law, antitrust, exemption, franchise location, franchise relocation, Federal Baseball, Flood, Kuhn, Toolson, Piazza, broadcasting, concessions, merchandise, merchandising, minor league, minor leagues, league, rule making, labor relations, players, umpires