jaybadger82
Cheesehead
- Joined
- Jan 17, 2012
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Not sure why an "entertainment business" exception makes sense: If you were a musician and every performance venue in the Los Angeles market formed an agreement not to give you more than 10% of ticket revenue or $10,000 per show, that's a pretty blatant Sherman Act violation. The musician's performance may not be "an essential product" but it seems like he deserves to obtain the best price the market will yield for his services.Here's part of a post I wrote in February of 2011:
"I don't think the NFL is a monopoly since other professional football leagues have and do exist and because the NFL doesn't dictate what each team can charge for tickets, concessions, etc. It also doesn't set a maximum salary for a player. (Beyond that, I don't think a monopoly in the entertainment business is harmful or important since it involves entertainment and not an essential good or service.)
(1) A couple practical matters: no plaintiff legitimately expects to win on its claim of a Sherman Act violation on the basis of actual monopoly. It's too easy to expand the boundaries of any market in order to introduce competing actors. For example, one could say MLB is not a monopoly because it competes with all other professional entertainment sports, expanding the market from "professional baseball" to "professional sports." The Sherman Act isn't so much about breaking up actual monopolies as it is about curbing market activity that restrains trade/commerce.But when the USFL wanted to compete directly against the NFL it filed and won an anti-trust lawsuit against the NFL in 1986. (Previously the USFL played in the spring and summer.) It couldn't charge the NFL with just being a monopoly (or a "pure" monopoly) since the USFL - a professional football league - existed. Instead they alleged the NFL had a monopoly regarding TV broadcasting rights, since at the time the NFL had a deal with all three of the "major" networks, ABC, CBS, and NBC. The jury found that the NFL was a legal monopoly but used predatory tactics. However, it also found the USFL filed the case in order to force a merger with the NFL and most of its problems were due to mismanagement so it awarded the USFL one dollar. Luckily for the USFL, damages are tripled in anti-trust cases, so it was awarded $3. That "victory" in court ended the USFL. BTW, Al Davis testified against the NFL in that case and Donald Trump owned the USFL's New Jersey franchise.
(2) Follow-up on the USFL case: in addition to the $3 in nominal damages awarded by the jury, the NFL was forced to pay $5.5 million in legal fees to the USFL plaintiffs. Because the NFL was in violation of the Sherman Act, even if a jury of fans didn't want to eviscerate them over it on behalf of an unsympathetic plaintiff that had already gone defunct.
(3) Although the USFL litigation offers an interesting story, these sort of jury decisions hold little significance from a legal perspective. Today many (if not most) antitrust cases are decided from the bench because the facts and issues are generally seen as too complicated for a lay jury. (I often think they're too complicated for me.) In the USFL case, the finding of a Sherman Act violation with no actual damages borders on logically inconsistent. Seems to reflect the widespread understanding that the NFL engages in monopolistic practices but it's tolerated because there's no other way to set up a fair competitive environment necessary for the sport of football.
Like I said, there's also the UFL, AFL, and for that matter, the CFL employs mostly American players.
Part of what the Sherman Act prohibits are "attempts to monopolize." See (1) above. Does the NFL completely meet the Webster's Dictionary definition of a monopoly? -Not if you're going to point to "competitors" like the UFL and AFL. But from an antitrust law perspective, the NFL certainly violates the Sherman Act through monopolistic activities that restrain commerce.