Antitrust and Sports

• Author: Christopher L. Sagers
• Pages: 259-272

259

CHAPTER XIV

ANTITRUST AND SPORTS

Sports is broadly subject to antitrust, with three major qualifications.

First, because sports are thought to face certain special economic

problems, the courts have shown some leniency in applying rules to

collaborative conduct that might be per se illegal elsewhere. Second,

Congress has enacted two explicit antitrust exemptions for sports, the

Sports Broadcasting Act and a 1966 law to exempt the merger of two

football leagues, and a third statute governing U.S. Olympic training

programs has been held impliedly to exempt some organizing entities

within amateur sports. Finally, by way of historical accident that has not

been fully corrected by the courts or Congress, antitrust largely does not

apply to professional baseball.

A. Antitrust and Sports in General

For the most part, and with the exception of professional baseball,

antitrust applies to sports as it does to other industries. So long as

admission or broadcast rights or some other aspect of the event is sold

for money, it is subject to antitrust. Thus, for example, antitrust applies to

amateur college sports that are televised for money, and it matters neither

that the colleges involved are organized as non-profit entities nor that

they are educational in nature.

1

It follows, however, that antitrust does

not apply to purely amateur sports as to which admissions or broadcast

rights are not sold, because they are not within “trade or commerce.”

2

1

. NCAA v. Bd. of Regents of the Univ. of Okla., 468 U.S. 85, 100-01

(1984).

2

. Thus, the NCAA’s amateurism, eligibility and recruiting rules, which

govern only the recruitment of volunteer players, have been held not

subject to antitrust, see Agnew v. NCAA, 683 F.3d 328 (7th Cir. 2012)

(holding that scholarship limits are not commercial); Bassett v. NCAA,

528 F.3d 426, 432-33 (6th Cir. 2008); Smith v. NCAA, 139 F.3d 180,

185-86 (3d Cir. 1998), vacated on other grounds, 52 5 U.S. 459 (1999);

Bleid Sports, LLC v. NCAA, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 138286, at *13-16

(E.D. Ky. 2013 ) (holding that NCAA bylaws prohibiting competitions or