Law Commons^™

Probing For Holes In The 100-Year-Old Baseball Exemption: A New Post-Alston Challenge, Sam C. Ehrlich

University of Cincinnati Law Review

As professional baseball’s unique exemption to antitrust law celebrates its one-hundredth year of existence, it faces a new attack in Nostalgia Partners v. Office of the Commissioner of Baseball, a claim by a group of minor league owners shut out of MLB’s recent restructuring of its minor league affiliate system. While the baseball exemption has weathered dozens of similar challenges over the past century, the Nostalgia Partners plaintiffs claim that circumstances on the Supreme Court have changed enough that the justices would be willing to overturn or narrow the exemption in their favor. This claim rests with the Court’s …

Antitrust Changeup: How A Single Antitrust Reform Could Be A Home Run For Minor League Baseball Players, Jeremy Ulm

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

In 1890, Congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act to protect competition in the marketplace. Federal antitrust law has developed to prevent businesses from exerting unfair power on their employees and customers. Specifically, the Sherman Act prevents competitors from reaching unreasonable agreements amongst themselves and from monopolizing markets. However, not all industries have these protections.

Historically, federal antitrust law has not governed the “Business of Baseball.” The Supreme Court had the opportunity to apply antitrust law to baseball in Federal Baseball Club, Incorporated v. National League of Professional Baseball Clubs; however, the Court held that the Business of Baseball was not …

Redeeming The Supreme Court: The Structure Behind The Baseball Trilogy And The Scope Of The Baseball Antitrust Exemption, Christian L. Neufeldt

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

This article conducts a systematic, methodological, and historical analysis of the baseball trilogy to elucidate its underlying structure. It adds to the existing scholarship by analyzing the later decisions in the context of their predecessors and exposing the interplay within the baseball trilogy. As a result, this article argues, against nearly universal opposition, that the Supreme Court issued well-considered opinions in each case and created a logical structure that underlies the entire trilogy. This article then scrutinizes the different approaches taken by the lower courts to delimitate the baseball antitrust exemption. It uses its structural findings on the baseball trilogy …

Is Baseball Shrouded In Collusion Once More? Assessing The Likelihood That The Current State Of The Free Agent Market Will Lead To Antitrust Liability For Major League Baseball's Owners, Connor Mulry

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

This Note examines how Major League Baseball’s (MLB) current free agent system is restraining trade despite the existence of the league’s non-statutory labor exemption from antitrust. The league’s players have seen their percentage share of earnings decrease even as league revenues have reached an all-time high. This reality is due to the players’ inability to “cash-in” when their market value hits its apex. Once these players enter the open market, their value has greatly deteriorated and consequently, they are unable to generate earnings commensurate with their value to the league.

This Note first explores the progression of MLB’s exemption from …

Major League Broadcasting: The Deleterious Effects Of Major League Baseball's Antitrust Exemption On Nevada Consumers With No Home Team, Andrew P. Dunning, Kerry E. Kleiman

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Reconsidering Flood V. Kuhn, Stephen Ross

Stephen F Ross

Within the academia, two very different groups of legal scholars have devoted a great deal of attention to Flood v. Kuhn. Those specializing in sports law have either attached Flood as a ridiculous decision that improperly distinguished between baseball and other professional sports, or have praised it for waging guerrilla warfare on the idea that Section 1 of the Sherman Act should apply to intra-league arrangements by owners of the professional sports teams. Those viewing Flood through the lens of statutory interpretation perceive the decision as adhering rigidly to the principle of stare decisis; this rigidity has been both praised …

Baseball And Antitrust: The Legislative History Of The Curt Flood Act Of 1998, Edmund P. Edmonds, William H. Manz.

Edmund P. Edmonds

No abstract provided.

Social Injustice In Minor League Baseball: How Major League Baseball Makes Use Of An Antitrust Exemption To Exploit Its Employees, Gregg Steinman

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

No abstract provided.

Grounding Into A Double Standard: Understanding And Repealing The Curt Flood Act, Brett J. Butz

University of Massachusetts Law Review

This note calls for an end to Major League Baseball's statutory exemption from antitrust law for acts that are considered part of the "business of baseball." The Curt Flood Act was a Congressional mistake, the product of years of faulty analysis and absurd holdings by the Supreme Court. This note will explain how the exemption came to fruition, outline the various problems with its inception, and conclude by proposing that Major League Baseball should be subject to antitrust law, just like all other professional sports leagues.

Nearly A Century In Reserve: Organized Baseball: Collective Bargaining And The Antitrust Exemption Enter The 80'S, Nancy Jean Meissner

Pepperdine Law Review

In her comment, the author fashions a compelling argument for congressional elimination of baseball's exemption from federal antitrust laws. After noting that the exemption had been formulated in 1922 by the Supreme Court, the author explains that it has been abused by baseball club owners to create a virtual monopoly over ballplayers through the reserve system. Although the reserve system's control was somewhat diluted in 1976, with the advent of free agency and collective bargaining, club owners are currently negotiating for mandatory compensation for the loss of free agents. The resultant threat of a player's strike has served to focus …

Who Exempted Baseball, Anyway?: The Curious Development Of The Antitrust Exemption That Never Was, Mitchell J. Nathanson

Mitchell J Nathanson

This article takes a fresh look at baseball’s alleged antitrust exemption and explains why, after all, the exemption is alleged rather than actual. For contrary to popular opinion, this article concludes that the Supreme Court’s 1922 Federal Baseball Club decision did not exempt Organized Baseball from federal antitrust laws. Instead, the opinion was much more limited in scope and never reached the question of whether Organized Baseball should be treated differently than other, similarly situated businesses or institutions, although Organized Baseball clearly invited the Justices to make this determination in its brief to the Court. As this article discusses, the …

Despite His Antics, T.O. Has A Valid Point: Why Nfl Players Deserve A Bigger Piece Of The Pie, Matthew Levine

Jeffrey S. Moorad Sports Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Introduction, Gilbert Stein

Jeffrey S. Moorad Sports Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Major League Baseball Contraction And Antitrust Law, John T. Wolohan

Jeffrey S. Moorad Sports Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Effect Of Baseball's Antitrust Exemption And Contraction On Its Minor League Baseball System: A Case Study Of The Harrisburg Senators, Stanley M. Brand

Jeffrey S. Moorad Sports Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Baseball And Antitrust: The Legislative History Of The Curt Flood Act Of 1998, Edmund P. Edmonds, William H. Manz.

Books

No abstract provided.

The Curt Flood Act Of 1998: A Hollow Gesture After All These Years?, Edmund P. Edmonds

Journal Articles

This article discusses the Curt Flood Act of 1998 and explores the nonstatutory labor exemption the Supreme Court has applied to professional sports leagues. It also explores the likely impact of the Curt Flood Act on the rights of players or managers to use antitrust laws effectively against one another.

Reconsidering Flood V. Kuhn, Stephen F. Ross

Journal Articles

Within the academia, two very different groups of legal scholars have devoted a great deal of attention to Flood v. Kuhn. Those specializing in sports law have either attached Flood as a ridiculous decision that improperly distinguished between baseball and other professional sports, or have praised it for waging guerrilla warfare on the idea that Section 1 of the Sherman Act should apply to intra-league arrangements by owners of the professional sports teams. Those viewing Flood through the lens of statutory interpretation perceive the decision as adhering rigidly to the principle of stare decisis; this rigidity has been …

Antitrust Implications Of Professional Sports Leagues Revisited: Emerging Trends In The Modern Era, The , Thane Rosenbaum

Faculty Scholarship

In a nation where sports entertainment is such a vital part of the American experience, it is somewhat surprising that the precise law governing the relationship between professional sports leagues and the Sherman Act is so noticeably confused and unsettled. Those who have sought uniformity in this area of law and scholarship had hoped to achieve some level of consistency between the highly developed principles embodied in traditional antitrust law, and that which seems to have evolved in the sports entertainment industry. What has remained from this academic if not athletic exercise is certainly not coherence, but rather a series …

The Effect Of Collective Bargaining On The Baseball Antitrust Exemption, Scott A. Dunn

Fordham Urban Law Journal

Baseball remains the only professional sport exempt from anti-trust scrutiny. Because of this unique status, baseball players have not pursued anti-trust lines of attack. Some now say that baseball players no longer need to depend on the anti-trust laws to effectuate modifications in their reserve system. Such commentators say that because of the equal bargaining strength of the parties, the labor exemption would operate to shelter from scrutiny even a term that was unilaterally imposed by the owners. In Federal Baseball Club of Baltimore, Inc. v. National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, the Supreme Court held that the baseball industry …

Ball, Bat And Bar, Harold Seymore

Cleveland State Law Review

Most Americans assume that they live under one set of laws which govern everybody. They also think that while monopolies and their abuses were once a problem, regulatory measures have long since eliminated or controlled them. The business of organized baseball proves that both these assumptions are mistaken. Recent operations of some baseball "companies" have underscored the falsity of these assumptions. The baseball business operates under its own complicated body of private law, and has been doing so ever since the business got its real start with the formation of the National League in 1876. Organized baseball is also a …