The Biggest Story in Sports Is Also the Biggest Secret in Sports… Also: NBA Pressed by Congressman on Age-Limit Rule

A cold chill could soon come over professional sports. Soaring ticket and merchandise prices would drive the average fan away from stadiums – and likely away from team support. The players’ unions would all be fractured or no-existent, but not before they embark on the strike to end all strikes against draconian new economic standards set by leagues that benefit no one but team owners.

And if you think the players are paid to highly now, just wait until neither coaches nor players are paid commensurate to their entertainment value, especially in the NFL where players trade short-term fame for a 56-year average lifespan and a post career of pain so severe they cannot sleep at night, even with the aid of handfuls of narcotic painkillers.

This new world of pro sports could well be right around the corner…

—————————————————–

It is said that nothing moves the sports media needle like mentioning the name of a big sports star. How about LeBron James? Mike Shanahan? Shaquille O’Neal?

If you watch ESPN and are an NBA fan you noticed that the network scaled back its NBA news last Friday. Monday, other than a mention of Steve Nash’s accepting the Phoenix Suns’ offer of a $22 million extension, there is still no news on the “Lig.” 

Sure, it’s summer and other than NBA Summer League play, not much is happening. But just a week ago talk of player movement in the NBA was top headline news. It was the same for Sports Illustrated.com, the same for CBS Sports.com, and the same for Fox Sports.com.

Now —————- nada. 

And the talk about player movement – particularly the, ‘which team will land LeBron James’ talk – in the bonanza season of 2010-2011 has screeched to an abrupt halt.

Why?

The answer is, just under the surface of the NBA, NFL, MLB, and the NHL lies, potentially, the biggest story in the history of professional sports.

Lying in wait as this is being written is a court case, American Needle, Inc. (ANI) vs. NFL. 

In December of 2004 ANI filed an antitrust case against the NFL. ANI claims that the NFL, because the league monopolizes professional football in America, is depriving the Buffalo Grove, Illinois company of its fair share of the hats and caps market which bear the logos of NFL teams. The NFL terminated its decades-long relationship with ANI in 2000. Lester Munson, who acts as the ESPN and ESPN.com legal expert explains the rest:

American Needle’s experience offers some evidence of what can happen when the NFL is successful in defending itself against antitrust suits. In court papers, attorneys for American Needle explain that the manufacturer was one of several competing companies licensed to make hats and caps bearing NFL logos. When the league agreed to grant caps-and-hats exclusivity to Reebok in 2000, the prices jumped from $19.99 to $30. Prices of replica jerseys increased by 60 percent, according to Carey, the ANI attorney.

After hearings in 2006, the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmed that it is “well documented” that fans and consumers suffered “losses from potentially anticompetitive agreements among professional sports clubs” such as the exclusive contract with Reebok….

Four and a half years ago, the case was nothing unusual. These sorts of legal actions happen all the time, as the NFL is a popular target for antitrust cases large and small. The league’s law firm, Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C., has defended similar suits for nearly 60 years — recently, the unsuccessful attempt by Ohio State running back Maurice Clarett to alter the NFL’s draft age requirements. Notable losses for the league came in the antitrust cases filed in Minneapolis by Freeman McNeil and Reggie White in the late ’80s and early ’90s that established free agency and other important benefits for NFL players.

For a time, the American Needle case seemed on its way to a rapid conclusion. The NFL won as quickly and as conclusively as anyone can win an antitrust lawsuit in the trial court and in an appeals court.

But American Needle didn’t give up. It filed a request for review to the U.S. Supreme Court, one of 7,500 or so such requests filed annually. The court takes only 70 or 75 cases for decision each year, and American Needle’s quest seemed quixotic at best.

Then, in a stunning development, the NFL told the Supreme Court it endorsed American Needle’s request for a hearing and a decision. The league’s attorneys announced, in a remarkable understatement, that they “are taking the unusual step of supporting” American Needle’s effort to have the case reviewed at the highest level.

The league’s action was a legal bombshell. Instead of standing on its lower-court wins over American Needle, the league told the Supreme Court that it wants the justices to consider an issue far beyond the caps-and-hats contract. It wants the court to grant the NFL total immunity from all forms of antitrust scrutiny, an immunity that would then apply to the NBA, the NHL and MLB, as well.

Seven previous attempts at usurping antitrust laws by the NFL failed. 

But today the league sees a corporatist (i.e. fascist) Supreme Court that puts ideology over legal regulation and rules accordingly. The major players sure to rule in favor of the NFL are John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, and Samuel Alito. These four will hope to find an ally in Stephen Breyer, who Munson says:

…could easily join the pro-business justices based on his opinion in an NFL case in 1996 in which he hammered the union.

It is expected that the NBA and NHL will join in the fracas, siding with the NFL as “friends of the court.” Though these leagues have no direct stake in the court’s decision their lawyers will appear on behalf of the NFL with the hope of influencing the outcome of the Supreme Court’s decision.

The NCAA and BCS are also hoping for an outcome favorable to the NFL. For the NCAA they would no longer worry about losing antitrust lawsuits as they have done in the past. For the BCS a decision in favor of the NFL means added protection against antitrust lawsuits that could otherwise break up the present bowl configuration.

How are these entities able to act in this capacity?

Because the NFL has surveyed the Supreme court’s judicial landscape and feels that, even with the confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor, the league is asking the Supreme Court justices not only to render a hats and caps ruling but to consider a single-entity rule for all leagues with no exemptions to the rule. The single-entity rule means the court would establish that the teams within the league are not entities unto themselves competing against each other, but instead that the league is the single “being” competing against other forms of entertainment, and that the teams exist solely under the umbrella of the league.

It is a dangerous time for anyone not owning a sports team or lording over an sports association, as in the case of the NCAA and the BCS. Players can expect their salaries to drop precipitously or rise and fall at the whim of owners. Player movement will be grossly restricted, making moot once and for all the heroic battle against the reserve clause undertaken by Curt Flood, which led to free agency in Major League Baseball. Coaches’ salaries across the board will suffer. Ticket and merchandise prices will rise to the chagrin of the fan. Fans can also expect to pay for league-run websites, while the information provided by independent websites will be heavily restricted.

All of this equates to the raping of the system by owners. And profit hikes for the owners beyond what are, to the fan, tenable.

————————————-

In retrospect, perhaps this is what lies behind the abrupt shift in ideology from Paul Tagliabue to Roger Goodell. As commissioner, Tagliabue acted to keep the league on an even keel, while quietly building the NFL brand. Goodell, on the other hand, hit the ground running with a plantation owner’s mentality toward the players and a totalitarian dictator’s demand that everyone involved with the NFL become solemn and kneel in fealty to “The Shield.” 

Because of his early successes Goodell has even turned his eye to the fans in the belief that the NFL is the single, all-powerful sports entity. And to Goodell, if the present ticketholders fail to conform to his wishes, there are plenty more people in line with wallets open in awe of his product, begging to be gouged at the ticket booth and the merchandise kiosk just to be afforded the opportunity to witness the spectacle of violence that is the National Football League.

To seal his fate as the ultimate owner’s commissioner, Goodell is leading the owner’s charge right to the Supreme Court, armed with tactics usually reserved for only the most powerful – and corrupt – of Capitol Hill lobbyists.

And under Roger “The Blond Ghost” Goodell, there is no care as o whether or not everyone suffers. As long as 32 men are happy.

And The Blond Ghost makes 33 – a magical number if there ever was one.

———————————————-

A Postscript:
This potential sport-wide altering decision is not front webpage or front sports page news at every sport news outlet. The excuse that is does not “move the meter” doesn’t fly. The thought that the hype to this point that the LeBron James – and other top NBA players – sweepstakes is quite possibly just a ruse move the meter. The uproar this news would cause in New York City would reverberate across the nation. The NYC press could write forever of the conspiracy of collusion to keep the Knicks down; New York fans would lose their minds.

Meantime, the discussion of the negatives and positives of blowing up player’s unions would be message and comment board fodder well after the Suprem Court hands down its ruling.

It is a ready-made ESPN reality show: “Countdown to Armageddon” they could call it. And the thing of it is, this is not some contrived segmented programming with an equally contrived outcome ————– this is real. The players in the play could, one way or another, become the stuff of legend and the subjects of endless E:60 tales; a two-hour special on all elements of the decision, from inception to the ruling; running OTL segments; Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic could lead the day with updates and salient conversation; daily 1st and 10 chatter; daily Sports Nation polls, and, well, you get it by now.

But for ESPN and ESPN.com and the rest of the mainstream sort media there exist precious few mentions of ANI vs. NFL.

Hopefully this is not a sign of just much influence, indirectly or directly, America’s primary sports leagues wield over our press.

Hopefully.

——————————————

Addendum:
NBA president Joel Litvin presented the NBA’s case for their age-limit rule. Litvin said:

Litvin told Cohen in a recent letter the purpose of the requirement is to promote the league’s business interests by “increasing the chances that incoming players will have the requisite ability, experience, maturity and life skills” to perform at a high level. The policy also helps teams make informed hiring decisions, he wrote.

In addition, he said, players get an extra year to mature and develop, making it more likely they can handle the challenges of being an NBA player.

Litvin said the policy is motivated by “business considerations,” not a desire to force players to attend college against their wishes.

He wrote that many employers require job candidates to have post-high school experience, and that the U.S. Constitution sets minimum ages for House members, senators and the president. Given that, “we do not understand your objection” to the rule, Litvin wrote.

However, Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., was unmoved by Litvin’s diatribe:

In a letter sent to Litvin Monday, Cohen maintained that players should have the “economic freedom” to make their own decisions. He said he understood that the policy may help the league in its scouting and hiring decisions.

“However, my concern is that the players who must abide by this rule are harmed by the league’s pursuit of these business interests,” the congressman wrote, adding that the “age discrimination” prevents players from supporting their families.

The policy increases the chance that such players will be injured before getting the chance to play in the NBA, he added.

“I am concerned that the careers of young men who possess all the skills necessary to succeed in the NBA,” Cohen wrote, “may be sacrificed in favor of the bottom lines of the teams on which they hope to play.”

Cohen, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, asked for a meeting with Litvin and Commissioner David Stern. Cohen has said that that he’d consider both hearings and legislation if the requirement remains.

This is sure to bring out the lawyer in David Stern.