About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

72 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 573 (2015)
Regulating Professional Sports Leagues

handle is hein.journals/waslee72 and id is 599 raw text is: Regulating Professional Sports Leagues Nathaniel Grow* Abstract Four monopoly sports leagues currently dominate the U.S. professional sports industry. Although federal antitrust law-the primary source of regulation governing the industry-would normally be expected to provide a significant check on anticompetitive, monopolistic behavior, it has failed to effectively govern the leagues due to both their well-entrenched monopoly status and the unique level of coordination necessary among their respective teams. Consequently, the four leagues today each, in many respects, enjoy unregulated monopoly status in what is estimated to be a $67 billion industry. As one might expect, these leagues use their largely unchecked monopoly power to injure the public in various ways. By restricting expansion, leagues create an artificial shortage of franchises enabling their existing teams to extract billions of dollars in stadium subsidies from U.S. taxpayers. Similarly, by preventing their franchises from individually licensing their broadcast rights nationally or over the Internet, the leagues are able to demand significantly higher fees from television networks and consumers than would be obtainable in a competitive marketplace while at the same time subjecting viewers to arcane and outdated blackout provisions. Unfortunately, existing proposals in the academic literature to remedy this undesirable state of affairs are both impractical and unlikely to be effective. This Article instead proposes a surprisingly * Assistant Professor of Legal Studies, Terry College of Business, University of Georgia. I would like to thank Marc Edelman, Gordon Hylton, Matt Mitten, Matt Parlow, Geoff Rapp, Tim Samples, Michael Waxman, and my fellow participants at the Marquette University Law School Sports Law Works- in-Progress Conference for supplying helpful comments on earlier versions of this Article. 573

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most