Letter: Single Entity Clarified

Letter to the Editor: 'Single Entity' League Clarified

Dear Mark:

I am a law professor at Tulane who specializes in sports industry law. I try to read your internet newsletter regularly, and I find it generally very well done and quite helpful to me in keeping up on what's going on. However, like everyone else it seems, when we muddle into the world of sports antitrust things get confusing.

Your blurb on the "single entity" had a couple of points that I thought needed clarification.  First,
you said league decisions may be illegal under section 1 "unless they are part of a union agreement."  That is way too narrow.  Since the Supreme Court's decision in 1996 in Brown v. Pro Football Inc., league rules dealing with any mandatory subject of collective bargaining, whether in a union agreement or not, are protected by the labor exemption.  Furthermore, there
are other exemptions that might protect league rules or decisions -- e.g., the Sports Broadcasting Act for pooled television rights sold for sponsored broadcasting in football, basketball, baseball, and hockey; and the vague judicially created baseball exemption.  Second, your last sentence that an antitrust lawsuit "is being considered against MLS" is unclear.  I didn't
know if you meant that someone is considering bringing such a suit or that a suit currently pending is being considered by the courts.  I assume you meant the latter since the Frasier case is and has been pending in Boston for over two and a half year, an antitrust case brought by the MLS Players Association.  But generally the blurb was very good and accurate for being so succinct.  Keep up the good work!

Gary R. Roberts
Professor of Law & Director, Sports Law Program
Tulane Law School