Supreme Court Rules That NFL Is 32 Businesses Not One Business

The Supreme Court on Monday turned away the National Football League's request for broad antitrust law protection, ruling that the league can be considered 32 separate teams-not one big business-when it comes to selling branded items like jerseys and caps. The high court unanimously reversed a lower court ruling throwing out an antitrust suit brought against the league by one of its former hat makers, who was upset that it lost its contract for making official NFL hats to Reebok. American Needle, Inc. sued, claiming the league violated antitrust law because all 32 teams worked together to freeze it out of the NFL-licensed hatmaking business. The company lost and appealed to the Supreme Court but the NFL did as well, hoping to get broader protection from antitrust lawsuits. The Supreme Court turned away the league's theory that its 32 teams operate as one business, and sent American Needle's antitrust lawsuit back to the lower court. "Decisions by NFL teams to license their separately owned trademarks collectively and to only one vendor are decisions that 'deprive the marketplace of independent centers of decisionmaking … and therefore of actual or potential competition,"' said the retiring Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the court.

Source: Associated Press

 

well, let's all put our money together and start a new franchise then because the nfl will have no choice but to let us participate in the league if they are just '32 individual businesses', right?

 

Can someone dumb this down for me. Like to the 4th grade level and explain why this is such big news?

I'm serious.

 

Depends. How old are fourth graders? Nine?

 

in a nutshell, it simply means that, according to the Supreme Court, if you and I wanted to approach the NFL about purchasing a license to make/sell their hats and jerseys, then we have that legal right even though Reebok is the only one right now that has a license.

it's really not a major deal in the big picture, other than the fact that, for some reason, the NFL doesn't have the same rights as MLB and is therefore subject to collusion lawsuits ..............

 

So this ruling is against the NFL?

 

yes

 

This ruling puts back the potential of competition and helps the so called lil guy against big corporate America.

 

About time somebody put the NFL in its place.

 

Damn capitalist pigs !

 

Is this based around the New Orleans issues?

 

Why are they treated different than MLB? Just curious.

 

i'm not sure how they justify only giving the exemption to MLB and none of the other major sports. i'm sure they have an excuse of some sort .......

 

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-661.pdf

 

The Supreme Court Judge is a season ticket holder (or whatever it is called in MLB) at Feinway Park? :icon_cool:





Seriously, what I'd like to know if does this mean that any NFL team would be able, for example, to stop sharing TV money and make a deal with any TV network of its choice (or even create one)?

 

Not sure if this is good or bad for the league. So if companies like American Needle can now go to , let's say the Cowboys for argument's sake, and cut a geat deal with them to manufature and sell and market their apparel can the boys make a seperate deal with them and take the revenue directly and not go through the NFL. If so then Jerry Jones should be jumping for joy at this decision. Or am i misunderstanding this?

 

As a fan and a person who purchases merchandise, I love this decision...hopefully some of these other companies can get a deal to create new merchandise b/c a lot of that crap Reebok puts out is exactly that...crap.

 

Agreed 86 but I worry about teams with more cash flow being able to overwhelm the market with their stuff too. Unlike what some owners say, I am glad there are small market teams like Green Bay and Jacksonville and the thing I can see going wrong is all this seperate cash flow going to the mega teams and then....you have the NY Yankees playing in the NFL.

 

this ruling doesn't change an individual team's ability to go out on their own for things like that. Those types of issues are agreed upon by the 32 league owners in their franchise agreements.

Legally, they've always had the ability to do that if the owners would agree to do it that way and change their franchise agreements. however, in the past, they have always chosen to do things as a group instead of individually.