There’s a lot of winger law professors on the intertubes, so I’m looking forward to a protracted discussion of this (presumably bogus) issue:
Pro-football fans and political pundits alike have been talking about Rush Limbaugh’s proposed bid to buy the St. Louis Rams football franchise, but many in the NFL are not too happy with the prospect of Mr. Limbaugh owning a team. In fact, the bid “ran into opposition within the NFL on Tuesday as [Indianapolis] Colts owner Jim Irsay vowed to vote against him, and commissioner Roger Goodell said . . . [his] ‘divisive’ comments would not be tolerated from any NFL insider.” This got me thinking preemptively of the antitrust problems the NFL may run into if an effort to stall Mr. Limbaugh’s bid is successful. (For details on the basic antitrust principles I omit for brevity, click here).
In other words, activist judges need to force the NFL to let Rush have a team.
It’s a shame that this hasn’t happening while Republicans control Congress. It would make for some interesting hearings.
Update. And, finally, we get an Instapundit-approved boycott of the NFL. What the hell took so long?
calling all toasters
I look forward to Ann Outhouse claiming that Jim Irsay and Roger Goodell are being controlled by Obama’s message to schoolchildren, which subliminally commanded them to crucify Citizen Rush.
dmsilev
Paging Glenn Reynolds and Ann Althouse, Glen Reynolds and Ann Althouse please pick up the white courtesy phone…
-dms
Punchy
Wait….isn’t anti-trust something Congress would have to pursue? Why would this Congress have a prob with Rush being shut out? Also, who said they’re stalling this? Sounds like an outright rejection.
Michael Gass
The NFL didn’t kill his bid for an NFL team. Rush was part of an investor GROUP, and, it was the leader of that GROUP that pushed Rush out of it.
Now, sure, the fact that Rush being ON the investor team was a problem, but, the facts are facts; it was the groups leader who axed Rush.
McGeorge Bundy
Hahaha! Good luck, wingnuts. This will have no impact whatsoever.
slag
Woohoo!!! That’s what I like to see!
Punchy
JUST WHAT THE FUCK IS THEIR OBSESSION WITH MAILING SHIT TO PEOPLE THEY HATE?
dobrojutro
A true free-marketeer with his money would just start a league to compete with the nfl. Show some initiative rushbo.
Scott
JUST WHAT THE FUCK IS THEIR OBSESSION WITH MAILING SHIT TO PEOPLE THEY HATE?
Better cut-up shirts than bombs, which is what they’d really prefer to send…
In the meantime — oh, please, please, please, let there be Congressional hearings…
dmsilev
@Punchy: Theory: RedState is actually being secretly run by the US Postal Service as a way to increase their business.
-dms
ChrisS
It’s a shame that this hasn’t happening while Republicans control Congress.
As posted in a previous thread, when George Soros (buys clothes and school supplies for poor kids, that guy) tired to buy the Natinals in 2004, the GOP-led Congress — people elected on the idea of limited government — threatened to remove MLB’s anti-trust exemption if Soros was allowed to be involved with the team.
Boggles the mind, don’t it?
apocalipstick
It’s baseball (and insurance) that has the anti-trust exemption, not the NFL. The NFL has not been granted an anti-trust exemption to the best of my knowledge. That’s why football teams move w/out league approval.
beltane
@Punchy: Conservatives like to waste money, that’s all.
Martin
Antitrust?
The NFL like all sports franchises have congressional granted antitrust exemptions.
Crashman06
Does this mean we’ll never see a John 3:16 sign waved around in the stands again?
Martin
At the very least you’d hope they’d use FedEx and avoid the social!st post office.
Michael
First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—because I hate those god damned communists;
Then they came for the soc!alists, and I did not speak out—because I like killing soc!alists;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because trade unionists support ACORN;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because the damn Jews took my money, and they’re a bunch of god damned liberal Christ killers anyway;
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out for me. So I rambled pointlessly for several years.
BDeevDad
Funny since most owners probably support the GOP including Roger Goodell.
ChrisS
@Martin:
No only baseball has an anti-trust exemption.
It’s why Vince McMahon was allowed to start his own football league, which craters. The ABA and the AFL were both start-ups that eventually merged with the NBA and NFL.
toujoursdan
And how well did those boycotts of Disney, Pepsi, McDonald’s and Ford go?
jibeaux
@apocalipstick:
John’s linkadoo say this:
Shell
NFL Boycott? More wingnut cut-my-nose-to-spite-my-face.
licensed to kill time
@Michael:
This is a beautiful thing. My belly, it is laughing!
Persia
Over at Coates’ blog I’m arguing with someone (well, I just stopped, because…yeah) who’s insisting every single one of Rush’s racist statements was taken out of context. Every one. Yeah.
BDeevDad
Speaking of which the Westboro Baptist Assholes are coming to my Synagogue on Saturday. Counter protest sign suggestions are appreciated, if we have one.
Napoleon
@apocalipstick:
You are correct the NFL does not have an anti-trust exemption like MLB (which was a judge created exemption).
Shell
Jeez, what got them pissed off about those companies?
Mark S.
This is my favorite comment:
Riiiight. It had nothing to do with Warner’s 67 QB rating.
toujoursdan
@Shell:
They were too nice to fags (speaking as one.)
ChrisS
@jibeaux:
The NFL’s anti-trust exemption is pretty much nominal and related to broadcasting rights (e.g., they can negotiate league deals and not team-by-team). It doesn’t have any of the teeth that baseball’s has. It’s why only DirectTV can offer the NFL Sunday Ticket package. It also prevents an uninterested part from suing the NFL.
But anyone can start a new professional football league and team owners can move the team as they deem necessary.
toujoursdan
@BDeevDad:
They hit the synagogue around the corner from me a couple weeks ago.
http://www.fuckedinparkslope.com/home/the-park-slope-vs-westboro-baptist-church-smackdown.html
There are some good sign suggestions on that link. (Have your Rabbi blow the shofar just to piss them off :-))
dmsilev
@BDeevDad: When they were infesting our campus a few months back, ‘God hates shrimp’ signs were the way to go. The visual resemblance between a prawn and a fetus is close enough to cause a bit of a doubletake.
-dms
Makewi
This has nothing to do with activist judges. It has everything to do with the fact that collusion within an industry to keep another party from entering the market is illegal under US anti-trust law.
That’s the argument anyway.
Napoleon
@Martin:
The anti-trust exemption to my recollection was only for MLB and started when a case made it to the supreme court which said something to the effect “thats a game, not a commercial enterprise” and refuse to apply anti-trust to baseball.
@BDeevDad:
Goodell’s dad was an upstate Rep. NY congress person who Nelson Rockfeller appointed to the senate to replace RFK when he was assasinated. He is very good friends with the spouse of a relative whom I have know since high school (who has been friends with Godell since college) whom as far as I can tell is a right winger (my relatives spouse, even though I meet Roger once when he was right out of college we never got into politics beyond what his dad did).
toujoursdan
@dmsilev:
I like the “God hates Polyester Blends” sign myself.
geg6
@Martin:
The only thing the NFL has an anti-trust exemption for was when the AFL and NFL were merging and for broadcast purposes (thus the blackout rule).
Otherwise, the NFL has no anti-trust protections. If they had interfered, for instance,
Basically, the anti-trust exemption just allows the NFL to exist. It does not prevent competition or give the NFL exclusive rights to anything other than the teams and games within its league. Without the exemption, the NFL would have to either assist with creating a league that is a direct competitor to the NFL (such as when the USFL was created), or would have to split itself into two or more independent organizations.
So essentially, it doesn’t prevent other competitor leagues like the USFL, but it does prevent uninterested parties from suing the NFL under anti-trust laws. If the NFL is found to be interfering with other competitors, it loses its exemption.
geg6
@Martin:
The only thing the NFL has an anti-trust exemption for was when the AFL and NFL were merging and for broadcast purposes (thus the blackout rule).
Otherwise, the NFL has no anti-trust protections.
Basically, the anti-trust exemption just allows the NFL to exist. It does not prevent competition or give the NFL exclusive rights to anything other than the teams and games within its league. Without the exemption, the NFL would have to either assist with creating a league that is a direct competitor to the NFL (such as when the USFL was created), or would have to split itself into two or more independent organizations.
So essentially, it doesn’t prevent other competitor leagues like the USFL, but it does prevent uninterested parties from suing the NFL under anti-trust laws. If the NFL is found to be interfering with other competitors, it loses its exemption.
Allan
Since it won’t escape moderation over there, I commented:
Oh, and if you have the email address of anyone who works for the NFL, could you please take pity on “Teflon” and share it with him? Tens of Americans are standing by to flood his inbox.
geg6
Damn the edit. Sorry for double post, but only one is composed correctly.
Napoleon
@jibeaux:
I think that is not a general anti-trust exemption but deals with negotiating a joint broadcast deal. Just ask Al Davis.
Bret
The Coyotes just went through this with Jim Balsillie. They, and the other members, didn’t want him to own a team, after 3 or 4 unsuccessful tries.
The NHL was, and the NFL is, within their rights to determine who can and cannot own a team.
Mark S.
I don’t know anything about antitrust, but wouldn’t rules restricting free agency violate antitrust laws? Wouldn’t the draft? In every other industry, Company A can’t prevent workers from taking another job if Company B is offering more money.
jibeaux
Okay, I don’t know anything about anti-trust or pro sports and IANAGL so I’ll take y’all’s word for it.
catclub
Persia@24
“Over at Coates’ blog I’m arguing with someone (well, I just stopped, because…yeah) who’s insisting every single one of Rush’s racist statements was taken out of context. Every one. Yeah.”
And even though nothing Rush says is racist, all his listeners turn out to be teabaggers and birthers. I guess he is converting them (slowly) to liberals.
cat48
This is Rush’s own personal Copenhagen. What did he say about O?? The ego has landed. This is the worst day of his broadcasting career. Rush has been rejected by the entire NFL world.
Paybacks a bitch, huh, Rush?? heh
catclub
Mark S@42
Never heard of an anti-compete clause? Happens all the time.
In all kinds of industries.
Illegal restraint of competition – probably. Doesn’t stop them.
Common Sense
@Mark S.:
Artists sign with one record label all the time.
geg6
@Mark S.:
They can if there are contracts negotiated by their workers’ unions accepting the concept of restricted free agents and that set out all the possible scenarios and outcomes.
The NFL isn’t a “right-to-work” red state. It’s a union shop.
geg6
@Mark S.:
Went to Wiki and found this to explain it better:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_agent
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restricted_free_agent
Nellcote
” While conservative bloviator Rush Limbaugh is running into some stiff resistance in his bid to become one of the owners of the St. Louis Rams, the Black Eyed Peas’ Fergie faced no such roadblocks in her quest to become a force in football as part-owner of the Miami Dolphins. According to SportingNews.com, NFL owners voted on Tuesday to approve her as the latest celebrity minority investor in the storied NFL franchise.
…
All of the Dolphins’ bold-name owners have bought very small portions of the team and have agreed to make appearances at the stadium during games as part of Ross’ effort to attract a more diverse crowd. On Monday, Estefan teamed up with Hank Williams Jr. on a bilingual version of the Monday Night Football anthem, “Are You Ready for Some Football?” as part of the NFL’s Hispanic Heritage Month celebration. ”
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1623776/20091014/fergie.jhtml
J in WA
God, this week has been such a win in Wingnut Freakout Entertainment! I don’t know if I can go back to just watching humdrum birthers, I feel like this NFL thing has cranked up my expectations too much and I need more and bigger freakouts from them.
I bet that I don’t need to worry on that regard, though. They’ll deliver, I’m sure of it. Fun times!
licensed to kill time
@cat48:
Or his Waterloo.
Mnemosyne
@Makewi:
So it’s fine for the government to block someone from entering the market but it’s bad and evil for private parties to do so?
You guys really have to get your talking points straight one of these days, because now you’re saying the free market is evil and the government is good.
David
Remember the idiotic mailing campaign to send a brick to a member of Congress to BUILD THE WALL!!! ?
Chad N Freude
I’m a DirecTV subscriber, and I don’t subscribe to their NFL package. I guess now I have to in order to show my liquidarity with the Why-Are-They-So-Mean-To-Rush crowd.
Tonal Crow
Sweet! This’ll play really well among the general public — and among the hordes of red-staters who love football more than their spouses. Not.
Andy K
@Makewi:
Wrong.
I’ll use the fast food analogy: You’d be correct if the NFL was McDonald’s, Rush was trying to open McLimbaugh’s, and McDonald’s/NFL was trying to keep Rush from opening his new chain.
But Rush wants to buy into a McDonald’s/NFL franchise. He wants to associate himself with the brand, and they don’t want him associated with the brand.
Andy K
@Andy K:
Okay, that wasn’t really an analogy….
Napoleon
Check this out. I decide to check out Goodell’s Wiki page so I google his name and the Google link to Wiki as well as the cache shows the below (but its not there on Wiki so must have been edited out already):
“Roger Goodell is racist against white people and conservitives. He said that blacks are better than whites and liberals are better than concervatives. “
Mark S.
I have heard of non-compete clauses, but how much courts enforce them vary widely:
I have no idea if state law would govern contracts between players and teams, and its kind of moot since all the major sports have free agency.
Napoleon
Oh, and better yet, according to Wiki Goodell is married to some Fox news anchor whose father was a Chief of Staff to Bush I. Sounds like a real lefty family to me.
Mark S.
@Napoleon:
Ha! I love how he or she misspelled conservative in two completely different ways.
Chad N Freude
@Napoleon: It’s on the Google cached page. Nothing ever dies on the Internet.
Chad N Freude
@Napoleon: Sorry, I read your post too quickly. Well, a little repetition never hurts.
Tonal Crow
@Makewi:
And what is blocking Flush from starting his own team in his own league? And doesn’t the NFL have a 1st Amendment right to choose with whom it associates? And don’t the investors who dropped Flush also have the same right? Oh, and don’t GOPers regularly inveigh against antitrust laws as being a big-government sockialist intrusion into the free market?
Napoleon
@Mark S.:
It makes you wonder if someone did that on purpose or if they really are that stupid.
[scratching chin]
I think I will go with they really are that stupid.
ChrisB
@BDeevDad: Not surprisingly, NFL owners include some of the most dyed in the wool Republicans you will find. According to one article, the Chargers, Texans, Browns and Redskins give 97-99% of their political contributions to Republicans, with the Texans giving over $500,000.00 and the Chargers giving a whopping $2.4 million+ to the Republicans.
http://bizoffootball.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=539:how-much-do-nfl-teams-contribute-to-political-parties&catid=44:articles-and-opinion&Itemid=61
The Rams are one of the teams that give more to Democrats.
Rock
Actually, individually each statement is technically racist, but collectively they are simply an example of Rush being unfairly attacked by liberals and race-hustlers.
Chi-city
I love how the Repugs first response is always some bat shit crazy response. “The left wing is taken over football, etc., etc.” Throw that insane initial response with birthers, deathers, anything Steele says, etc., etc…. You can see they would be much better off taking 10 deep breathes before saying anything. But I do think that Rush should invest in a NASCAR team. That would be right up his ally. He could paint the car red and put a picture of him on hood. Buck naked if he so desired. Might fly.
Gwangung
@ChrisB: So rush was blocked to preserve ideological diversity?
Rock
How can people that celebrate the “free-market” not understand that the NFL is a business not a market. Rush can enter the market, the NFL gets to decide if they want him to own of the franchises making up their business.
Rush being kicked to the curb by the ownership group he was in is an example of market forces at work. If that seems unfair, then that’s because the market is unfair.
ronin122
Oh yeah, Limpballs is getting so butthurt today, I’d say more but just check it out: h/t media matters. So now the NFL is apparently a bastion of racism and liberalism, Rush has been lynched like panty-sniffer Clarance Thomas, and oh yeah he mentioned George Soros for a good “I’m too stupid I parody myself now” gag.
schrodinger's cat
So now the ideologically pure ones are going to boycott NFL, we know Hollywood is bad and evil, so no movies for themeither, so I wonder, what will they do for entertainment?
Tonal Crow
@schrodinger’s cat:
Um, join the Fred Phelps Brigades?
joe from Lowell
Wingnuts. NFL.
Wingnuts.
NFL.
I know who’s going to win, but what’s the spread?
joe from Lowell
Don’t these people realize that the NFL has already considered how much damage a wingnut boycott will do, considered how much damage an anti-Limbaugh boycott would do, and decided that the latter is much, much more signficant?
No, they don’t. They’re still stuck in their b.s. “Real Americans” mindset, Macaca.
This goes back to a theory I’ve propounded more than once on these thread: Conservatives are the Iraqi Sunnis of American politics.
They been propagandized for years by their leaders, told that they are much more numerous than they really are, that they are the only true expression of their nation’s culture, that everyone else is rightly beneath them, and that their nation as a whole wants them to lead. They’ve been hearing this so long, they’ve come to believe it, and it’s going to take a pretty brutal series of ass-kickings before they accept the truth of their situation.
Reason60
I read the link to Moltenwhatever, and noticed that they are commenting that “Roger Goodell wants to bend over for Al Sharpton”
There it is again- this weird obsession with being anal raped big black men.
Then there is this-
“And then let’s ask him why—the NFL being as enlightened and race-conscious it is—there is only 1 African-American team owner in a league where 70% of the players are African-American.”
I dunno, but I bet if they asked Al Sharpton he could tell them why.
After they grabbed their ankles, of course.
I kid, I kid….but its good to see the Right taking an interest in racial disparity in America.
zoe kentucky in pittsburgh
I love it when politics and sports collide– it often reveals how insane sports fanatics are even when compared to political junkies.
Rush doesn’t have a “right” to buy a football team. I think it’s also pretty telling that anyone believes that “the left” has anything to do with it. They are so irrational and paranoid that they see nonsensical conspiracy theories everywhere they look.
Reason60
@schrodinger’s cat
So now the ideologically pure ones are going to boycott NFL, we know Hollywood is bad and evil, so no movies for them either, so I wonder, what will they do for entertainment?
Watch Tom Delay dance with Larry Craig.
Anne Laurie
The 101st Chairborne are the people whose fondest childhood memory involved leaving bags of burning dogshite on other peoples’ doorsteps. Except now, they’re too lazy and out-of-shape to actually hike over to their enemies’ homes, or to run away afterwards.
Besides, some of those old ladies and twelve-year-olds throw a meaner punch than you’d expect.
Jay C
Glue their eyeballs to their computer screens, and jack off to
Internet pr0nwingnut blogs.Just like they’ve always done…..
Jon H
Seems the key here is that Limbaugh wouldn’t “own a team”, he’d be a minority investor. Possibly a large minority, but a minority none the less.
If he can’t find people who want to invest with him, because they see him as a liability likely to hurt the value of their own investment, then tough cookies.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Concern douche is concerned.
BDeevDad
Conveniently enough, last month, OpenSecrets.org looked at NFL donations to federal political interests since the 1990 election cycle by owners, coaches and players. Not surprising results.
Makewi
@Mnemosyne:
@Tonal Crow:
You both have a hard time focusing on the issue at hand, which is the argument that doug links to, for the simple reason that you are hellbent on seeing every argument through an ideological prism. Grow the hell up. Idiots.
For fucks sake I didn’t even say I agreed with the argument, just that it’s not an issue of activist judges.
LD50
True. We’ve all been very impressed by your political impartiality.
Aren’t *you* the one who started babbling Doctor Seuss quotes recently?
Gee, why are you so bitter, Make Wee?
Mnemosyne
@Makewi:
In other words, you got caught making a stupid argument — again — and now you’re trying to pretend you were arguing something else entirely that we were just too stupid to perceive.
Now I remember why I started ignoring you in the first place, and why I will be doing so again from now on.
Pug
Goodell also happens to be married to Fox News hottie Jane Skinner.
Makewi
@Mnemosyne:
I wouldn’t expect someone who couldn’t understand the argument to begin with to actually deal with what I had to say honestly. So instead you’ll just pretend. I agree, you should ignore me.
Honus
Why do conservatives always freak out when someone makes a financial decision that they don’t like? Rush is only the latest example; his partners realized he would be a liability to their team; you can extend that to the whole club of owners who refused to sell him a piece of their league because they thought he would be bad for business, but there’s no government repression here in any way. And it’s a legitimate decision for the owners to decide that Rush would be offensive to the fan base they wish to attract.
Likewise, Monday night, I could go out on my porch and hear wingnut heads exploding when the Miami Dolphins held Hispanic Heritage night and had the officials make the first call of the game in Spanish. They did this not only for “politically correct” reasons but also because it was good for business. The Dallas franchise has had similar yet more low key Hispanic outreaches for years- not because they are forced to, but so they can make more money.
I’m always amused by the people that think that Lowes has all those signs inside their stores in Spanish because they are soemhow forced to. Of course, Lowe’s has those signs up for the simple reason that they are good for business. As is Hispanic immigration generally.
And why Rush was cut from his owner’s group. He’s bad for business.
Honus
@Makewi:
More like it’s not worth arguing with somebody who has such a fundamental lack of understanding of anti-trust law.
The Republic of Stupidity
Geez… I actually think BETTER of the NFL tonight…
Incredibly funny thread, BTW…
Yutsano
@joe from Lowell: Considering the Wingnuts play baseball, yeah, it would seem a bit of a mismatch, even in the steroid era.
http://www.wichitawingnuts.com/
BTW I REALLY want one of those hats, the comedic gold alone is worth it!
Professor Fate
if my poor memory serves the USFL actually sued the NFL for Monopolistic interferance with the operations of their league and actually won. The Judge awarded them $5 which kind of took the wind out of the judgement.