Drew Brees Writes Plea to Supreme Court over American Needle Case

↵↵In an op-ed that will run in Sunday’s Washington Post, posted online today, New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees wrote an amazingly well-crafted and impassioned plea to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking for the justices to rule against the very league in which he plays. Brees, a member of the executive committee of the NFLPA, thinks that a ruling in favor of the NFL could provide the league with full anti-trust status, and thus, could allow the NFL owners to renegotiate the rules of free agency without collectively bargaining them. In other words, a ruling about some hats and shirts could change the entire sport as we know it.↵

↵↵⇥Amazingly, even after the NFL won the case, it asked the Supreme Court to dramatically expand the ruling and determine that the teams act as a single entity not only for marketing hats and gear, but for pretty much everything the league does. It was an odd request -- similar to my asking an official to review an 80-yard pass of mine that the official had already ruled a touchdown. The notion that the teams function as a single entity is absurd; the 32 organizations composing the NFL and the business people who run them compete with unrelenting intensity for players, coaches and, most of all, the loyalty of fans.↵⇥↵⇥At the moment, the NFL Players Association and team owners are negotiating over a new collective bargaining agreement, and the threat of a lockout looms for the 2011 season. Historically, players have made significant gains, such as free agency, by challenging the NFL on antitrust grounds. If the Supreme Court rules that the league’s 32 organizations constitute a single entity that is exempt from antitrust laws, players will lose this important leverage.↵⇥

↵↵Brees’ analogy of asking the official to look over his touchdown pass is the sticking point here. The league is in essence asking the court to review a ruling they already won in hopes the court will expand this antitrust exemption to more than just merchandise. In other words, the owners – who spend more and more money each year trying desperately to beat the others – want the Supreme Court to look at them not as 32 separate businesses operating under one set of rules (which they are) and grant them status as a single-entity, thus saving them from themselves.
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Per SportsBusiness Daily:↵↵⇥The NFL and American Needle have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on an issue that sports leagues have argued in courtrooms for decades: whether a league and the teams that play in it should be considered as a single entity or as separate businesses engaged in a joint venture when defending against antitrust claims.↵⇥↵⇥If a league is deemed to be a joint venture, as leagues have been treated in cases before American Needle, it is subject to Section 1 of the Sherman Act, making it more susceptible to antitrust claims. If, however, the league is considered to be a single entity, it is exempt from Section 1, making it harder to prove most such claims against it.↵⇥

↵↵There are many opinions out there about how this ruling will impact the future of American sports, but none may carry the weight as someone like Brees. We have a tendency, as fans, to complain about how much money professional athletes make and how high our ticket prices and parking and concessions have become. But it’s the owners, not the players, who make all those financial decisions. As Brees points out:↵↵⇥What might the owners do? They could agree to end or severely restrict free agency, continue to enter into exclusive agreements that will further raise prices on merchandise, lock coaches into salary scales that don’t reward them when they’re promoted and set higher ticket prices (including preventing teams from competing through ticket discounts).↵↵No matter what team is your favorite, I think we, as fans of the game, are all behind Brees this weekend.↵