antitrust exemption

[sec159row2]

what is the significance of baseball's antitrust exemption? What would happen if congress took it away? I think I blew-off class the day they cover antitrust stuff

[HuskyCaucasian]

It has something to do with the way they run the minor leagues. They would basically have to restructer baseball and the draft.

[tonyho7476]

what is the significance of baseball's antitrust exemption?  What would happen if congress took it away?  I think I blew-off class the day they cover antitrust stuff

Yeah, we need somebody, who knows, to really explain this. I don't fully understand the significance.

[southsider2k5]

The anti-trust exemption allows baseball to engage in anticompetitive practices.

[sec159row2]

The anti-trust exemption allows baseball to engage in anticompetitive practices.

 

?????????????

[southsider2k5]

?????????????

 

 

Examples

 

-They completely own minor league baseball and dictate all of their rules and business practices. No other sport does this.

 

-They don't subject everyone to the same draft rules. Look at the NBA, NFL, and NHLs drafts to refer to what I am talking about.

 

-They have forced even unwilling owners to share their revenues with small market teams.

 

-No one else can start another baseball league and not be subject to MLB doing anything they want to crush it. They can committ anti-trust violations such as a predatory pricing to drive them under, and no one can do anything about. The USFL won a lawsuit against the NFL for committing these same practices that MLB could get away with.

 

-The commisioner can force teams to take actions they don't want to, even though he has no ownership in their teams.

 

There are plenty of other examples, but my mind is blank right now...

[Rex Kickass]

Basically it allows a league with teams that have different owners to self-regulate its business practice. It allows collusion between teams.

[Soxbadger]

Anti-Trust exemption means that MLB is not subject to anti-trust lawsuits.

 

IE

 

I want to start a MLB team, they wont allow me to, I can not sue them for monopolizing baseball.

 

As for the exemption Ive read that it was technically granted by the judiciary in a court case, with them saying that congress could take this exemption away.

 

SB

[Kalapse]

http://espn.go.com/mlb/s/2001/1205/1290707.html (I'ts kind of an old link but it should answer some questions.)

 

What is the antitrust exemption and how did baseball get it?

 

Any business that operates across state borders -- and therefore participates in interstate commerce -- is subject to antitrust legislation. Attempts to control trade and monopolize may be deemed illegal by federal circuit courts under the Sherman and Clayton acts.

 

Baseball has been exempt from these antitrust laws since 1922, when the Supreme Court ruled in its favor in Federal Baseball Club of Baltimore, Inc. v. National Baseball Clubs. The Supreme Court determined even though there was scheduling of games across state lines, those games were intrastate events since the travel from one state to another was "not the essential thing," Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote in the decision.

 

Baltimore, a member of the Federal League that operated as a major league in 1914-15, had sued the National and American Leagues, charging the Federal League's inability to sign players was due to antitrust violations.

 

At the time of the 1922 ruling, the National and American Leagues were merely umbrella organizations. They arranged the schedules and set the rules, but the business was entirely local in the sense that there was no revenue sharing, no radio or television and no national sponsors or licensing deals.

 

By virtue of the exemption, coupled with decades of reluctance of various courts to overrule, baseball is the only sport, or business for that matter, that has an exemption to the extent that it does.

 

What does the exemption do?

 

There are several aspects to the exemption, but the primary issue right now is this means a team can't move unless MLB allows it to move.