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Full-Text Articles in Law
Monopoly Sports Leagues, Stephen Ross
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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 …