The score for baseball-like anti-trust immunity: Supreme Court 9, NFL 0.

Ruling leaves MLB still the only favored sports business in the U.S.

Its about sports but it's really a business story: Last week the U.S. Supreme Court disappointed the National Football League in it's hopes for a back-door granting of baseball-style protection from anti-trust laws.  The case wasn't particularly complex:  all the NFL teams, en-mass, awarded the manufacture of apparel and sports souvenirs for all of the league's teams to one company, Reebok.  Except for a jilted, previous supplier, no one might have otherwise cared--but hat-maker American Needle did.  In effect, American Needle--which had been a supplier for some but not all of the teams in the NFL--lost business from the NFL entirely when it--the NFL--decided to go with Reebok exclusively.  

It wasn't just against NFL--it dashed the hopes of other sports as well.  

Well, that isn't exactly true either; in fact, other major league sports cared a lot about the outcome of the court test that challenged the NFL's decision--and were watching closely.  In fact, other major league sports had joined the NFL as friends of the court in support of the NFL decision to go it alone with Reebok; these sports entities included the NBA, NHL, NCAA, NASCAR, professional tennis, and Major League Soccer.  They filed friend of the court briefs, siding with the NFL.  

The decision was one that the NFL highly desired, for it would have increased it's buying power and, thus, it's leverage for better prices to pay for the cost of goods sold--and, more importantly, it would have given it virtual monopolistic power over prices to charge its customers and fans.  

Well, the Supreme Court didn't appear to show either much sympathy nor much conflict over the matter--it ruled 9-0 against the NFL and sent the matter back to a lower court for more litigation.  Consequently, major league baseball remains the only sport in the U.S. that has business immunity from anti-monopoly laws.  [It is a complicated and torturous legal tangle of rulings that gave baseball it's immunity privileges back in 1922--and for die-hard fans an interesting tale to unwind.  Suffice it to say that it is difficult to envision either the Congress or the Supreme Court granting anti-trust protection to baseball in today's world!]

In retrospect, it was the wrong play for the NFL to call.

Of course, the NFL hardly needs the support of exemptions to anti-trust laws, however, for it is the most profitable and prosperous of all the major league sports.  However, the ease by which the NFL enjoys that distinction may be modified with this ruling--the way it negotiates other contracts, arrives at labor agreements, comes to terms with television rights--all of that may be now under closer scrutiny and the processes potentially modified.  

It's about sports but it's really a business story.

You could almost say that NFL's failed fourth-down pass cost them some advantage--when they should have punted instead.  But--for consumers, at least--the Supreme Court called the right play for the rest of us.  
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