Abstract

Team owners in professional sports leagues, including the National Football League (NFL), the National Basketball Association (NBA), the National Hockey League (NHL) and Major League Baseball, place highly restrictive restraints on players. These restraints include the player draft, restrictions on tampering, reserve and option rules, and mandatory free agent compensation requirements. The owners justify these restrictions as methods of equalizing competitiveness among the teams. Additionally, team owners argue that the restraints preserve economic balance within the leagues. Players, as well as an increasing number of courts and legal scholars, maintain that the restraints on the athletes' economic value and mobility are unreasonably restrictive and amount to restraints of trade violating federal antitrust laws.

Since early June 1987, the NBA and the National Basketball Players' Association (NBPA) have been without a collective bargaining agreement. There has been no progress in the negotiations for a new agreement. The NBPA, as the players' union, hopes to abolish the college draft and move toward a free market for employing new players. The owners are, of course, against such a change. The NBPA filed suit on behalf of the players in federal court in early October 1987, challenging the player restraints.

Similarly, the NFL players went on strike September 22, 1987, seeking a more lenient system of free agency after their collective bargaining agreement with the owners expired on August 31, 1987. Although the strike ended on October 15, 1987 without a new agreement, the NFL Players' Association and individual players filed an antitrust suit against the NFL in federal court the day the strike ended. It is not unlikely that other professional sports unions and players will make similar antitrust claims in the future. Obviously, some changes in the system of player-owner relations are needed to solve the current labor-management problems and prevent future antitrust challenges.

This Note will evaluate player restraints currently in use in professional sports and discuss their legality under the antitrust laws. Other less restrictive means of maintaining a competitive balance will be highlighted. Finally, an ideal combination of factors for maintaining competitive balance and assuring players their economic worth will be delineated.

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