Download Free Baseballs Antitrust Exemption Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online Baseballs Antitrust Exemption and write the review.

The controversial 1922 Federal Baseball Supreme Court ruling held that the "business of base ball" was not subject to the Sherman Antitrust Act because it did not constitute interstate commerce. In Baseball on Trial, legal scholar Nathaniel Grow defies conventional wisdom to explain why the unanimous Supreme Court opinion authored by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, which gave rise to Major League Baseball's exemption from antitrust law, was correct given the circumstances of the time. Currently a billion dollar enterprise, professional baseball teams crisscross the country while the games are broadcast via radio, television, and internet coast to coast. The sheer scope of this activity would seem to embody the phrase "interstate commerce." Yet baseball is the only professional sport--indeed the sole industry--in the United States that currently benefits from a judicially constructed antitrust immunity. How could this be? Drawing upon recently released documents from the National Baseball Hall of Fame, Grow analyzes how the Supreme Court reached this seemingly peculiar result by tracing the Federal Baseball litigation from its roots in 1914 to its resolution in 1922, in the process uncovering significant new details about the proceedings. Grow observes that while interstate commerce was measured at the time by the exchange of tangible goods, baseball teams in the 1910s merely provided live entertainment to their fans, while radio was a fledgling technology that had little impact on the sport. The book ultimately concludes that, despite the frequent criticism of the opinion, the Supreme Court's decision was consistent with the conditions and legal climate of the early twentieth century.
The impact of antitrust law on sports is in the news all the time, especially when there is labor conflict between players and owners, or when a team wants to move to a new city. And if the majority of Americans have only the vaguest sense of what antitrust law is, most know one thing about it-that baseball is exempt. In The Baseball Trust, legal historian Stuart Banner illuminates the series of court rulings that resulted in one of the most curious features of our legal system-baseball's exemption from antitrust law. A serious baseball fan, Banner provides a thoroughly entertaining history of the game as seen through the prism of an extraordinary series of courtroom battles, ranging from 1890 to the present. The book looks at such pivotal cases as the 1922 Supreme Court case which held that federal antitrust laws did not apply to baseball; the 1972 Flood v. Kuhn decision that declared that baseball is exempt even from state antitrust laws; and several cases from the 1950s, one involving boxing and the other football, that made clear that the exemption is only for baseball, not for sports in general. Banner reveals that for all the well-documented foibles of major league owners, baseball has consistently received and followed antitrust advice from leading lawyers, shrewd legal advice that eventually won for baseball a protected legal status enjoyed by no other industry in America. As Banner tells this fascinating story, he also provides an important reminder of the path-dependent nature of the American legal system. At each step, judges and legislators made decisions that were perfectly sensible when considered one at a time, but that in total yielded an outcome-baseball's exemption from antitrust law-that makes no sense at all.
Distributed to some depository libraries in microfiche.
The Baseball Trust is about the origins and persistence of baseball's strange exemption from antitrust law. Told through a frequently riveting and always entertaining history of America's pastime, author Stuart Banner emphasizes the strategies baseball has used to achieve a protected legal status enjoyed by no other industry in America.
This article examines the judicially created antitrust exemption Major League Baseball enjoys, as well as the effects of its repeal on the various components of the game.
This article examines Major League Baseball's (MLB) antitrust exemption from a practical, historical perspective and concludes that it is largely irrelevant to the actual (as opposed to theoretical) workings of the business of baseball. This article focuses first on the exemption's supposed protection of baseball's "reserve clause" and finds that it was irrelevant to its creation in 1879 as well as its demise in 1975. Despite the exemption, the reserve clause has always been subject to challenge under contract law and it was a simple argument based on contract law principles that led to its eventual dismantling. This article then focuses on the exemption's purported ability to allow team owners to prevent franchise relocation and unwanted expansion (unlike their brethren in the NFL) and concludes that the exemption is merely a mirage: while it appears to exist from afar, up close it disappears. As a result, MLB owners have historically acted no differently than their counterparts in the NFL and in accordance with the principles of the Sherman Act out of fear that if they did not, Congress would step in and formally remove the exemption. Thus, in an ironic effort to prevent the Sherman Act from applying to it, MLB has voluntarily abided by it.
Excerpt from The Court-Imposed Major League Baseball Antitrust Exemption: Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Antitrust, Business Rights, and Competition of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, One Hundred Fourth Congress, First Session The thurmond-leahy legislation repeals baseball's antitrust ex emption, while maintaining the status quo for the minor leagues. Protecting the current relations with the minor leagues is impor tant to avoid disruption of the more than 170 minor league teams which are thriving throughout our Nation. This is a priority which other members and I have clearly expressed. I am also concerned about the issue of franchise relocation, a subject on which I held hearings in the mid-1980's while serving as chairman of the Judiciary Committee. Relocation is a significant issue to baseball, as well as other professional sports. If the anti trust laws need adjustment in this area, we will consider this mat ter in the context of all professional sports. Thus, the Thurmond Leahy bill does not address franchise relocation, but separate legis lation is being considered to protect objective franchise relocation rules in all professional sports. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.