Supreme Court Rules Against NFL

[Xantar]

The Supreme Court said on Monday that the N.F.L. is an “unincorporated association of 32 separately owned professional football teams,” not a single business, for the purposes of selling branded jerseys and caps.

American Needle is an apparel maker from Illinois that lost its contract with the N.F.L. when the league entered into an exclusive 10-year deal with Reebok in late 2000.

The unanimous ruling in American Needle Inc. v. National Football League was a reversal of a controversial lower-court ruling and amounted to a defeat for the league, which had sought protection from challenges to its business on antitrust grounds, legal experts said. In effect, the court said the N.F.L. was still open to antitrust scrutiny, as it has been for years.

Source: New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/sports/football/25needle.html?hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1274720422-wQK5W6t0J1QsalpQIun4sQ)

My reading on this ruling is that it means individual football teams can negotiate deals involving their own image and the NFL doesn't speak for them or have the ability to force them into any deals. So if I want to manufacture Packers themed merchandise, I can negotiate a contract directly with them and the NFL can't forbid them from signing any deal with me nor can the NFL force the packers into an exclusive deal with any other manufacturer. In fact, it would be illegal for the NFL to force all the teams into an exclusive deal with some other party.

What I'm wondering is what this means for EA's videogame exclusivity. In theory, Sega could develop a game with the New York Giants and neither the NFL nor EA would be able to stop them. Obviously, a game with just one team isn't one that anybody would want to play, but it might mean that EA's exclusivity deal is illegal on anti-trust grounds.

[Professor S]

I doubt this will change much in practice. The NFL is very organized and the owners onserve the value of operating as a single entity. Each team will "idependently" choose to operate in accordance with the other owners. Some might call is a cabal, but it would be difficult to prove in court if you arguments were price fixing, etc.

[BreakABone]

Yeah, its a weird ruling.

But in theory, I would assume that EA would have to sign a contract with every major team for exclusive rights.

Or would that only be an issue if a team opposed it.

[Vampyr]

Does this mean if I want to record a football game I no longer need the expressed written consent of NBC and the NFL, but will actually need the expressed written consent of NBC and -both- teams involved?

Well that's just inconvenient.

[TheGame]

Here's the thing though.. while the NFL doesn't own the teams and doesn't reserve the rights to sign them over exclusively anymore, that doesn't mean they lost any control over the player's association.

There have been games in history to have the player association licence and not have the NFL licence ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madden_Football_64 ), but I haven't seen a game with the NFL licence and no players licence... though I wouldn't be suprised if there are some out there.

"On December 13, 2004, EA Sports announced it had secured exclusive rights to the NFL and its players' union for the subsequent five years, precluding any other third party from selling a football game using NFL players, teams, stadiums or other licenses. This was recently extended until 2012."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madden_NFL

That implies that Madden DID in fact get the player association licence exclusively. If they didn't, Sega probably would have been releasing football games just like Madden 64/93 in the down-time. The best Sega could do now is get all of the teams to agree to be on their game, and they can make it like a college football game with no real player names.

I really don't think people are that desperate these days for a 2k game.

[Typhoid]

For the record, I had Madden Football 64.
That game was horrible.

At any rate this is an awkward ruling, and sadly I think it will change the entire face of every sport in North America within the next year and a half.

[TheGame]

For the record, I had Madden Football 64.
That game was horrible.

I had it too... It's funny that they released it with the out-dated game engine compared to Psx's version, just with better graphics... I loved 99 for N64 though