Law Commons^™

Now Streaming: How Streaming Services Are Following In The Antitrust Footsteps Of Hollywood’S Golden Age, Megan Elizabeth Norris

University of Miami Business Law Review

The entertainment industry is undergoing quite the transformation following the recent termination of the Paramount Consent Decrees, which effectively regulated the industry to prevent monopolization and promote competition for almost a century. The industry now faces a drastic surge in the utilization of streaming services and a new wave of antitrust issues.

“With great power comes great responsibility;” however, the dominant streaming companies in the industry have raised suspicion about emerging anticompetitive concerns. While long overdue, the termination of the Paramount Consent Decrees leaves a gaping hole in antitrust policy regarding the nuanced business practice of streaming platforms. Existing antitrust …

The Demise Of The Hub-And-Spoke Cartel And The Rise Of The Student Athlete: A Significant Step Toward A New Era Of Conferences In Ncaa V. Alston, Brandon Posivak

University of Miami Business Law Review

The NCAA is not above the law. On June 21, 2021, the Supreme Court unanimously held in NCAA v. Alston that the NCAA’s student-athlete compensation restrictions violated § 1 of the Sherman Act, and student athletes may now obtain education-related benefits from their name, image, and likeness (NIL). The Court’s holding marked the first time the NCAA’s compensation restrictions failed antitrust scrutiny under the Rule of Reason analysis, but by limiting its holding to education-related benefits, the Court refused to open the floodgates to all forms of NIL compensation. Within its holding, the Court notably rejected the NCAA’s procompetitive argument …

Out Of The Octagon And Into The Courtroom: The Ufc’S Antitrust Lawsuit, John Milas

DePaul Journal of Sports Law

No abstract provided.

Antitrust Implications Of The Ncaa's Restrictions On The Use Of Name, Image, And Likeness Of Student-Athletes, Jesse Addo

University of St. Thomas Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The New Era Of Nfl Antitrust Law, The Sunday Ticket Package: Was The Ninth Circuit Ruling A Touchdown Or A Penalty?, Maya Rustom

Pepperdine Law Review

Americans love football, but every year thousands of fans are forced to pay exorbitant annual fees if they chose to have access to out-of-market games. In other words, if fans don’t live in the territory of their favorite team, they can either pay an excessive annual fee to watch their team play or miss out on the majority of games every season. This arrangement is a result of DirecTV’s Sunday Ticket Package, which is an exclusive distributorship agreement with the NFL that prevents fans from watching live out-of-market games unless they pay the annual subscription fee. This Comment addresses and …

The Music Industry: Drowning In The Stream, Jonathan Croskrey

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

The Department of Justice is reviewing two of it's oldest consent decrees, which were entered into with ASCAP and BMI. ASCAP and BMI are the two original performing rights organizations and existed well before streaming. This article analyzes copyright and antirust law through the lens of modern technology and the current landscape of the music industry. It examines whether the consent decrees should be removed or modified and what the consequences of each would be.

2020 Annual Survey: Recent Developments In Sports Law

Marquette Sports Law Review

No abstract provided.

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 …

All Bets Are Off: Preempting Major League Baseball’S Monopoly On Sports Betting Data, Beatrice Lucas

Washington Law Review

Major League Baseball is in the process of collectivizing data used in sports betting. This could be exempt from antitrust scrutiny if the conduct falls within the “business of baseball.” Such an exemption raises the question of whether collecting official league data is sufficiently attenuated from the “business of baseball” to be subject to antitrust law, and if so, whether MLB violates the Sherman Act by excluding competitors from the league data market. This Comment makes a two-fold argument. First, it argues that the “business of baseball” should be constrained to cover activities directly linked to putting on baseball games. …

A Thirty-Year Retrospective Of Legal Developments Impacting College Athletics, Timothy Davis

Marquette Sports Law Review

None

Sports Law In Law Reviews And Journals, Audrey Johnson

Marquette Sports Law Review

None

Defining Unreasonable Radius Clauses For American Music Festivals, Trevor Lane

Seattle University Law Review

Since 1969, the music festival remains a staple of American musical culture, and in order to meet consumer demands, today’s music festival promoters rely on radius clauses ancillary to the performance agreements that they use with artists. These radius clauses limit artists’ ability to perform at other music festivals and concerts within a specified temporal and geographic radius of the contracted music festival. Beginning in 2010, legal challenges have alleged that broadly defined radius clauses used by music festival promoters violate Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act. This Note contends that radius clauses which limit artists from performing beyond …

2019 Annual Survey: Recent Developments In Sports Law, Audrey Johnson

Marquette Sports Law Review

None

Regulating The Ncaa: Making The Calls Under The Sherman Antitrust Act And Title Ix, Stephanie M. Greene

Maine Law Review

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a powerful force in shaping the intercollegiate athletic programs of some 1200 public and private colleges. Courts have recognized the NCAA as an entity that serves the important and admirable functions of maintaining the amateur status of intercollegiate athletics and the integrity of the educational process for the student-athlete, while providing a fair and equitable competitive environment. Most of the NCAA's rules and regulations are promulgated to promote and maintain these goals. Nevertheless, both student-athletes and coaches have challenged NCAA rules in the courts, claiming that certain rules discriminate on the basis of …

Amateurism And The Ncaa: How A Changing Market Has Turned Caps On Athletic Scholarships Into An Antitrust Violation, Daniel Laws

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Not Everyone Qualifies: A Comparative Look At Antitrust Law And Nascar's Charter System, Tyler M. Helsel

Marquette Sports Law Review

None

A Brave Attempt: Can The National Collegiate Athletic Association Sanction Colleges And Universities With Native American Mascots?, Kenneth B. Franklin

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

No abstract provided.

Monopoly Sports Leagues, Stephen Ross

Stephen F Ross

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 …

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

Stephen F Ross

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 …

Sports And The Law: Text, Cases, And Problems, 5th, Stephen Ross, Paul Weiler, Gary Roberts, Roger Abrams

Stephen F Ross

This casebook introduces students to the fundamentals of labor, antitrust, and intellectual property law as applied in the professional and amateur sporting industries. It covers the unique office of the league commissioner and special concerns with the “best interests of sports”; the contract, antitrust, and labor law dimensions of the player-labor market; the peculiar institution of the player agent in a unionized industry; the economic and legal implications of agreements among league owners and responses to rival leagues; the system of commercialized college athletics governed by the NCAA and how law impacts individual sports like golf, tennis and boxing; as …

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 …

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

Stephen F Ross

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 …

Antitrust Options To Redress Anticompetitive Restraints And Monopolistic Practices By Professional Sports Leagues, Stephen Ross

Stephen F Ross

The hallmark of an antitrust violation is an agreement which has the effect of raising price, lowering output, or rendering output unresponsive to consumer demand. Owners of clubs comprising Major League Baseball, the National Football League, the National Basketball Association, and the National Hockey League engage in a variety of exploitative activities that consumers cannot avoid by substituting rival products. The purpose of this Article is to analyze specific areas where these monopoly sports leagues harm a variety of groups, through the maintenance of a monopolistic structure that precludes competitive entry, or through specific restraints that have demonstrable anticompetitive effects. …

Accommodating Labor And Antitrust, Stephen Ross

Stephen F Ross

In this article, the author comments on Professor Michael LeRoy's article "Federal Jurisdiction in Sports Labor Disputes" (2012 Utah L. Rev. 815) and explains why he disagrees with the claim that federal courts improperly invoke the Sherman Act in sports labor disputes.

A Regulatory Solution To Better Promote The Educational Values And Economic Sustainability Of Intercollegiate Athletics, Stephen Ross, Matt Mitten

Stephen F Ross

Currently there are several pending antitrust suits challenging NCAA rules restricting the economic benefits intercollegiate athletes may receive for their sports participation. Although remedying the inherent problems of commercialized college sports (primarily Division I football and men’s basketball) is a laudable objective, a free market solution mandated by antitrust law may have unintended adverse consequences. Judicial invalidation of these rules may inhibit universities from providing many athletes with a college education they would not otherwise receive, by eliminating or reducing the value of scholarships for many players whose economic value is less than the cost of an education. A wholly …

Do Not Pass Go And Do Not Collect $200: Nike's Monopoly On Usatf Violates Antitrust Laws And Prevents Athletes From Living At Park Place, Jill K. Ingels

Marquette Sports Law Review

No abstract provided.

Student-Athletes Vs. Ncaa: Preserving Amateurism In College Sports Amidst The Fight For Player Compensation, Audrey C. Sheetz

Brooklyn Law Review

While student-athletes are the backbone of the $11 billion college sports industry, they do not currently receive any of this revenue derived from the use of their names, images, and likenesses. The National College Athletic Association’s mission is to maintain the amateur status of student-athletes. In doing so, it precludes student-athletes from receiving any type of compensation outside of the actual cost of tuition. Amateurism, as a concept, promotes the distinction between professional and student athletes, and is the crux of the NCAA’s argument for prohibiting the compensation of student-athletes. Recently, however, the controversy surrounding the amateur status of college …

Three Strikes And You're Out: An Investigation Of Professional Baseball's Antitrust Exemption, H. Ward Classen

Akron Law Review

This Article will examine the economic structure of the professional sports industry, explore professional baseball's judicially created exemption from antitrust laws and discuss the impact of the Federal Baseball Club v. National League and subsequent decisions on the professional sports industry. Finally, this Article will demonstrate that while baseball's antitrust exemption may have been justified sixty-five years ago, it now promotes economic inefficiency and infringes upon the constitutional rights of professional baseball players to freely market their talents.

Punt, Impasse Or Kick: The 1987 Nflpa Antitrust Action, Elyzabeth Joy Holford

Akron Law Review

The business aspects of professional sport dominated the media when a twenty-seven day strike disrupted the 1987 NFL football season, which included the hiring of replacement players, the filing of numerous labor charges by both the NFL Management Council (NFLMC) and the NFL Players' Association (NFLPA) and the dismal end of the strike after many players crossed the picket lines to return to play.' On the day that the NFLPA announced that the strike was over, they also shifted into their final goal line defense: the filing of an antitrust action against the National Football League (NFL) and each individual …

Brief Of Antitrust Scholars As Amici Curiae In Support Of Appellees, Supporting Affirmance, Chris Sagers, K. Craig Wildfang, Ryan W. Marth, David Martinez

Law Faculty Briefs and Court Documents

Amici urge affirmance for three principal reasons. First, we elaborate a point to dispel Appellant's suggestion that antitrust somehow does not belong here. Second, we show that ordinary rule of reason treatment was appropriate. Relying rather daringly on a case that it overwhelmingly lost, Appellant asks this Court to find within NCAA v. Board of Regents of Univ. of Okla., 468 U. S. 85 (1984), a rule that its "amateurism" or "eligibility" restraints are "valid...as a matter of law." NCAA Br. at 14, 22. Board of Regents did not say that, and even Appellant's own amici admit it. See Wilson …