Law Commons^™

The Misunderstood Alliance Between Sports Fans, Players, And The Antitrust Laws, Stephen F. Ross

Journal Articles

The baseball strike and the ongoing hostilities between the players' association and owners have evoked criticism and frustration among fans and others. Although the players successfully defeated the owners' most recent attempts to reduce major league competition, the threat of future imposition of competitive restraints by the owners remains. In this article Professor Stephen F. Ross argues that blanket restraints on the market for players affirmatively inhibit on-the-field competition and consequently offend the Sherman Act.

The article begins with the proposition that monopsony - price-fixing behavior by buyers', rather than sellers' cartels - implicates the Sherman Act. Restraints on competition …

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 …

Rededication Panel Discussion On Gender Equality And Intercollegiate Athletics, Stephen F. Ross, Karol Kahrs, Fred Heinrich

Journal Articles

This article is a transcript of a panel discussion in which Professor Stephen F. Ross, Associate Athletic Director Karol Kahrs, and Fred Heinrich participated entitled "Sports and the Law," at the Rededication of the University of Illinois College of Law. The panel discussion centered on the issue of gender equity in intercollegiate athletics. Title IX of the Education Amendments Act requires institutions receiving federal funding to provide equal educational opportunity for students regardless of gender. The panel discussion focused on the impact of Title IX and the University of Illinois's efforts to comply with the requirements.

Over Forty Years In The On-Deck Circle: Congress And The Baseball Antitrust Exemption, Ed Edmonds

Journal Articles

"Congressional discussion of baseball's antitrust exemption stretches over forty years involving a significant number of legislative initiatives. Although the exemption is a judicial aberration without justification, the 103d Congress will probably be no more successful than its predecessors in altering its long-standing existence. The three bills under consideration are not specifically crafted to resolve the problems of the changes in the commissioner's office or the lack of an expansion franchise or the relocation of an existing franchise to the Tampa-St. Petersburg area. Much of the history of Congressional concern over baseball's antitrust status suggests that broad-based attempts to completely remove …

An Antitrust Analysis Of Sports League Contracts With Cable Networks, Stephen F. Ross

Journal Articles

This Article discusses the proper antitrust treatment of package sales to cable. Part I considers whether the antitrust laws apply at all to such sales; it concludes that section one of the Sherman Act does apply and that neither the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 not baseball's historic exemption from the antitrust laws prevents antitrust scrutiny of these contracts. Part II explains why cable package sales should be analyzed under a rule of reason test focused on the effect of a sale on fan viewership. Finally, Part III responds to several possible objections to the rule of reason standard proposed …

Monopoly Sports Leagues, Stephen F. Ross

Journal Articles

This Article argues that the government should break up both Major League Baseball and the NFL to provide for competing economic entities in each sport. Part I details the harm monopoly sports leagues cause in several different markets and explains why a competitive league structure can correct such harms. Part II discusses why regulatory solutions are poor substitutes for competition as a means of redressing these harms. Part III explains why neither baseball nor football is a "natural monopoly" and argues that no persuasive evidence suggests that rival leagues cannot exist in those sports. Part IV examines how the antitrust …

Postsecondary Athletics And The Law: A Selected Bibliography, Edmund P. Edmonds

Journal Articles

Although sports have for many years been an integral part of American higher education, it was not until recent years that athletics in colleges and universities became enmeshed in legal problems. The heightened interest in the legal aspects of sports is apparent to even the most casual reader of the daily sports pages, and it is increasingly becoming a major concern of administrators in American colleges. Because of this interest one finds a number of articles appearing in law reviews in recent times, when in the past they were almost non-existent. In fact, the existence of this symposium issue is …

An Act To Restrict The Use Of Erotic Material For Commercial Purposes, Robert E. Rodes

Journal Articles

This article outlines a theoretical act to restrict the use of erotic material for commercial purposes.

The Moving Picture Anti-Trust Cases, Thomas F. Broden

Journal Articles

United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc., et al. involves a consideration by the Supreme Court of The United States of the guilt of a vast segment of the nation-wide movie industry of a district court conviction of re- straining and monopolizing interstate trade in the distribution and exhibition of films. Not only were the violations of the Sherman Act by the largest moving picture film distributors of the country in issue, but a more difficult problem, that of what to do about the violations, was presented to the Supreme Court for its consideration.

From a reading of the majority opinion …