NFL Vs. American Needle; Sherman Act, Schmerman Act

Soon the U.S. Supreme Court will hear an important anti-trust case to decide to what extent the NFL can conduct itself as a single entity in negotiating certain agreements or if it must operate as 32 individual entities.

I don’t have a problem with the Sherman Anti-Trust act. It prevents companies from doing things like charging a penny for a gallon of milk in a certain territory, driving out all competitors, then raising the price of milk to a million dollars. (Muwhahahahaha!!!!!)

However, the Act has also made me lose interest in professional sports. You can interpret the Act to prevent Ron Cey, Davy Lopes, Steve Garvey and Steve Sax from being forced to stay in the same infield together forever all you want, but it still made baseball a lot worse for me at least.

It helped make millionaire ball players into potential billionaires, and there are a lot of lower tier ball players that went from lower middle class to millionaire; but I’m more concerned about the irritating sight of Garvey in a Padre uniform, or Eric Dickerson playing for the Colts.

There are decent arguments on both sides of this issue and the New Orleans Saints QB Drew Brees laid out the NFL player’s view recently in Washington Post. His points fall flat with me however. I’m not concerned about whether a hat maker gets to make NFL hats or if they have to make hats for someone else. I fail to see how I benefit if NFL players get to drive up their salaries through this kind of competition and play for different teams every couple years if they choose.

Free and unfettered competition is always a compelling argument but it hasn’t made these sports better. I know the arguments. I took all the anti-trust classes in law school, somehow I got published in the field, but the truth is that the Act’s application to sports has made sports worse.

What has the fan gained from all this free agency? Spoiled players with guns, bad tattoos, bling, steroids, and high ticket prices? Is this what they we’re fighting for? I’m glad the court is taking a second look at this. My free advice to the players is that before they gain sympathy by griping about the Sherman Act, they will need to clean up their own act. oooooh. Sick burn!