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scoofy

That seems extremely anti-competitive. I wonder if that rule could be challenged.

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It's a League. The entire reason for its existence is to be anticompetitive (in business).

Yes. Note the idiom "in league with."

The NFL got Congress to write them a specific exemption in the anti-trust laws, so it's very, very doubtful.

I've heard about an exemption for baseball, although that came from judicial corruption rather than being a legislative effort. Confirm that there's a specific legislative exemption for football too?

[1] 15 U.S. Code § 1291 - Exemption from antitrust laws of agreements covering the telecasting of sports contests and the combining of professional football leagues

[2] 26 U.S. Code § 501 - Exemption from tax on corporations, certain trusts, etc.

[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/1291

[2] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/501

There are also a few more places the Code references football: https://www.law.cornell.edu/search/site/football?f[0]=bundle...

Football and baseball are not equivalently exempt. Baseball enjoys far broader exemption. The NFL does have some conditional exemptions, but not in the same scope [1]. Recently, the US Supreme Court said exactly as much [2] in a very specific scenario.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_antitrust_law#Sc...

[2] https://www.oyez.org/cases/2009/08-661

Private company, go start yer own football league if you don't like it, etc.

non profit with tax breaks you mean

When it's convenient, yup, doing a public service, keeping kids off drugs, stuff like that.

Any industry can form a similar nonprofit trade association. The members pay tax.

that's a pretty horrendous way to change what's morally wrong with the world

The alternative is to change a majority of people's minds that this is something morally wrong with the world, make cases to supreme court and/or lobby congress and eventually turn the tide in your favor. Not really sure which way is easier.

I was mocking it not endorsing it.

XFL

It's been tried a few times... Probably the best challenge was the USFL, but they couldn't make a go of it over the long term, and that was when the NFL media machine was much less entrenched. The ESPN 30 for 30 film "Small Potatoes: Who Killed The USFL?" is pretty interesting (especially given that Trump was a key player in that drama)[1]

[1] http://espn.go.com/30for30/film?page=small-potatoes-who-kill...

The Green Bay Packers are a non-profit corporation in a private sports league. Business competition within a league is prima facie absurd.

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