Justices rule against NFL over apparel licensing

[hardcorecubfan]

tp://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/05/24/nfl.lawsuit/index.html?hpt=T2

 

Washington (CNN) -- The Supreme Court unanimously ruled against the National Football League over its exclusive contract with an apparel maker in one of the most important sports law cases in decades.

In a 9-0 decision Monday, the justices said the league can be considered 32 separate teams, not a single business.

The court allowed a lawsuit against the league to continue, saying the licensing of intellectual property "constitutes concerted action" that is not part of the broad antitrust protection enjoyed by professional baseball. Such protection allows individual teams to act as one business when making a host of financial decisions, including marketing their logos and trademarks.

[NCCubFan]

Indirectly I wonder if this could help the NFL in their case to suspend the Vikings players. If I recall the justification for the NFL to be bound by Minnesota law was that the players are employed by the NFL rather than the team. It seems to me that a Supreme Court ruling that the NFL is a collection of 32 entities rather than a single entity would imply that the players are employed by the teams, not the league, and thus void the Minnesota courts' jurisdiction over the case.

[BCVM22]

And directly, this opens a positively immense can of worms as far as merchandising, as it potentially paves the way for each of the 32 teams to negotiate their own apparel and merchandising contracts with whomever they so choose. In the event that the lawsuit goes through and the ruling is against the NFL, you'd have each team with its own apparel supplier and merchandiser; you could have the Bears with a Reebok contract, the Vikings with a Nike contract, the Packers with an Adidas contract, and so on, and that would apply to both the on-field jerseys and fan merchandise and apparel.

 

I'm sure the business juggernaut that is the NFL and their lucrative Reebok contract won't let it get that far, one way or another, but it bears watching.

[Derwood]

the funny thing is that the NFL actually had a lower court rule in favor of them, but they decided to take it to the USSC because they thought they could broaden their rights.

 

some lawyers will be fired over this