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4 Harv. J. Sports & Ent. L. 191 (2013)
Reverse Collusion

handle is hein.journals/harvsel4 and id is 200 raw text is: Journal of Sports & Entertainment Law HARVARD LAW SCHOOL Reverse Collusion Ryan M. Rodenberg and Justin M. Lovicht ABSTRACT In the sports industry, collusion has typically manifested itself on the team owner side of the equation, with numerous historical examples of manage- ment collectively moving to suppress player movement and/or salaries for pecuniary reasons. Such collusion is now prohibited in the league-union collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) that govern all prominent North American team sports. However, the language in sports league CBAs is not always reciprocal. CBAs in the National Basketball Association (NBA) and National Football League do not expressly prohibit player-level reverse collusion. Using the recent decision (pun intended) of LeBron James and other basketball stars to create super-teams in the NBA through collec- tive action as an anecdotal example, we posit that the omission of reciprocal language in such CBAs has created loopholes that should be closed for com- petitive balance reasons and general considerations such as sports league in- tegrity and transparency. TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT .................................................... 191 INTRODUCTION ............................................... 192 1. COLLUSION IN PROFESSIONAL SPORTS . ..................... 194 A. Historical Perspectives ............................. 194 B. Pre-Reverse Collusion and Free Agency ................. 197 t Rodenberg is an assistant professor of sports law analytics at Florida State University. He earned a JD at the University of Washington and PhD at Indiana University. Lovich is a PhD student at Florida State University. He earned a JD at Duquesne University. The authors would like to thank William Winter and Ryan Pekarek for helpful comments.

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