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Articles Posted in Sports and Entertainment Law

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Does the NBA have an antitrust problem? A rival basketball league may think so.

Authors: Luke Hasskamp & Molly Donovan NBA action is FAN-TASTIC! Unless, of course, the action is one brought by the Department of Justice in a different kind of court. But that may be exactly where the NBA finds itself: the DOJ is reportedly investigating the professional basketball association for alleged…

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MMA & Monopsony: MMA Fighters Win Class Certification Bout in Employment Monopolization Case

Authors: Luke Hasskamp & Molly Donovan In yet another important labor-monopsony case, a federal court in Nevada has declared a win for MMA athletes fighting against their promoter’s alleged misuse of monopsony power in the market for acquiring fighters’ services. Class certification has been granted to MMA fighters accusing their…

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Antitrust for Kids: As Rivals Become Friends, The Government Gets Angry (The PGA Mini-Golf Tale Continued)

Authors:  Molly Donovan & Luke Hasskamp You may recall Liv, age 8—the new kid. Last we heard, Liv was getting pushed around by Paul, Greg and Adam (“PGA” for short) because she dared to build a mini-golf course in an attempt to challenge PGA’s longstanding position as the best and…

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Federal Court Denies Golfers’ Request for Order to Play in the FedEx Cup Playoffs

Author: Luke Hasskamp Two days before the FedEx Cup Playoffs—a federal court in San Francisco denied three players’ requests for an order allowing them to participate in the marquee event. Those three players—Talor Good, Hudson Swafford, and Matt Jones—had asked the court to immediately enjoin their recent suspensions, handed down…

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Antitrust for Kids: No Traitors Allowed: Golf and Monopolization

Authors:  Molly Donovan & Luke Hasskamp Liv is 8. She just moved to town from out of state and has 3 new neighbor friends Paul, Greg and Adam (“PGA”). The PGA kids seem very nice and well mannered. They wear pastels. And the coolest thing about them: they have a…

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Is the PGA’s Suspension of 17 Players Out of Bounds Under the Federal Antitrust Laws?

Authors: Luke Hasskamp and Molly Donovan We often write about sports and antitrust and have previously written about professional golf, and, specifically, the legal implications of a competitor golf league trying to break onto the scene: The PGA Tour faces off with the Premier Golf League: An Antitrust Problem? Is…

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Is Antitrust Litigation the Next Stop in the PGA Tour’s Battle with the Upstart LIV Golf League?

Author: Luke Hasskamp Hello, friends. Let’s talk about some of the latest developments in the world of professional golf, at least from an antitrust perspective. Last spring I wrote about the PGA Tour’s response to a potential competitor golf league. The new league promised to shake up professional golf, guaranteeing…

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Major League Baseball vs. the Minor Leagues: A Time to Revisit Baseball’s Antitrust Exemption?

Author: Luke Hasskamp It’s one of the best times of the year—opening day in Major League Baseball! Now, there has been a lot of professional baseball news lately, with the MLB lockout and acrimonious negotiations between the MLB players union and team owners, before they finally resolved the dispute and…

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Alston v. NCAA: Helpful for Future Antitrust Defendants?

Author:  Steven J. Cernak[1] On June 21, 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed lower court decisions and held that certain NCAA restrictions on educational benefits for student-athletes violated Sherman Act Section 1.  The unanimous opinion was a clear win for the plaintiff class and almost certainly will lead to big…

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Who is Capable of Conspiring to Violate the Antitrust Laws?

Author: Jarod Bona When you think about Sherman Act Section 1 antitrust cases (the ones involving conspiracies), you usually consider the question—often framed at the motion to dismiss stage as a Twombly inquiry—whether the defendants actually engaged in an antitrust conspiracy. But, sometimes, the question is whether the defendants are, in…