American Needle Won! NFL Exclusive Deals May Be A Thing Of The Past

[aholbert32]

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Check out the coverage at ESPN.

"WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court on Monday turned away the National Football League's request for broad antitrust law protection, ruling that the league can be considered 32 separate teams -- not one big business -- when it comes to selling branded items like jerseys and caps.
The high court unanimously reversed a lower court ruling throwing out an antitrust suit brought against the league by one of its former hat makers, who was upset that it lost its contract for making official NFL hats to Reebok.

American Needle, Inc. sued, claiming the league violated antitrust law because all 32 teams worked together to freeze it out of the NFL-licensed hatmaking business. The company lost and appealed to the Supreme Court but the NFL did as well, hoping to get broader protection from antitrust lawsuits.

Major League Baseball is the only professional sports league with broad antitrust protection. The National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League, the NCAA, NASCAR, professional tennis and Major League Soccer supported the NFL in this case, hoping the high court would expand broad antitrust exemption to other sports.

The Supreme Court turned away the league's theory that its 32 teams operate as one business, and sent American Needle's antitrust lawsuit back to the lower court.

"Decisions by NFL teams to license their separately owned trademarks collectively and to only one vendor are decisions that 'deprive the marketplace of independent centers of decisionmaking ... and therefore of actual or potential competition," said the retiring Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the court."

[djordan]

Re: American Needle Won! NFL Exclusive Deals May Be A Thing Of The Past

AND WERE OFF TO THE RACES!!!...........

[beastsofboston]

Re: American Needle Won! NFL Exclusive Deals May Be A Thing Of The Past



hopefully this means no more exclusive

[RGiles36]

Re: American Needle Won! NFL Exclusive Deals May Be A Thing Of The Past

I just caught this article myself...

I don't have my hopes up though. I don't know enough about the legal process to even remotely entertain the thought of Madden losing the exclusive license (which is all we care about).

I believe there was a user by the name of 'African' who seemed to be pretty well informed on the ramifications of this case. Be nice if he could chime in.

"Decisions by NFL teams to license their separately owned trademarks collectively and to only one vendor are decisions that 'deprive the marketplace of independent centers of decisionmaking ... and therefore of actual or potential competition," said the retiring Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the court.

^^ This was the biggest statement made to gamers. But again, I don't think this will have any impact on the exclusive license being shredded. Unless, this makes it impossible for the EA/NFL to extend it.

[sb24]

Re: American Needle Won! NFL Exclusive Deals May Be A Thing Of The Past

WOW! Cant wait to see how it all plays out.

[ryan36]

Re: American Needle Won! NFL Exclusive Deals May Be A Thing Of The Past

Now it goes back to the lower court, where they will simply have to find/cite different precedent to uphold their previous ruling.

[aholbert32]

Re: American Needle Won! NFL Exclusive Deals May Be A Thing Of The Past

I just caught this article myself...

I don't have my hopes up though. I don't know enough about the legal process to even remotely entertain the thought of Madden losing the exclusive license (which is all we care about).

I believe there was a user by the name of 'African' who seemed to be pretty well informed on the ramifications of this case. Be nice if he could chime in.



^^ This was the biggest statement made to gamers. But again, I don't think this will have any impact on the exclusive license being shredded. Unless, this makes it impossible for the EA/NFL to extend it.

I doubt that 2k or any competitor would file suit against the NFL but I think the NFL will be hesitant to extend the exclusive deal.

[beastsofboston]

Re: American Needle Won! NFL Exclusive Deals May Be A Thing Of The Past

I just read the article and all it means is each team will have to sell a liecence if the exclusive liecence went down.

[aholbert32]

Re: American Needle Won! NFL Exclusive Deals May Be A Thing Of The Past

Now it goes back to the lower court, where they will simply have to find/cite different precedent to uphold their previous ruling.

I doubt that will happen. Kind of hard to get around this ruling. The high court made it clear that the NFL should be considered 32 different franchises...not one entity.

[aholbert32]

Re: American Needle Won! NFL Exclusive Deals May Be A Thing Of The Past

I just read the article and all it means is each team will have to sell a liecence if the exclusive liecence went down.

What it means is that the NFL will be extremely hesitant to do exclusive deals in the future because it fears an antitrust suit.

[ODogg]

Re: American Needle Won! NFL Exclusive Deals May Be A Thing Of The Past

This may not be as great of a thing as you guys think. I wonder if we'll see 2K licensing Buffalo Bills football with the Bills, Browns and other types of teams in the game but teams like the Patriots, Steelers and Cowboys missing. Will this mean individual teams can license out whatever they want and the NFL license is no longer needed?

[RGiles36]

Re: American Needle Won! NFL Exclusive Deals May Be A Thing Of The Past

This may not be as great of a thing as you guys think. I wonder if we'll see 2K licensing Buffalo Bills football with the Bills, Browns and other types of teams in the game but teams like the Patriots, Steelers and Cowboys missing. Will this mean individual teams can license out whatever they want and the NFL license is no longer needed?

Gee, I hope not. Never say never though...

I imagine we'll see plenty of speculation on the part of law-making OSers over the next few days. Will be a treat to read if nothing else.

[thudias]

Re: American Needle Won! NFL Exclusive Deals May Be A Thing Of The Past

This may not be as great of a thing as you guys think. I wonder if we'll see 2K licensing Buffalo Bills football with the Bills, Browns and other types of teams in the game but teams like the Patriots, Steelers and Cowboys missing. Will this mean individual teams can license out whatever they want and the NFL license is no longer needed?

This is what i hope does not happen.

[aholbert32]

Re: American Needle Won! NFL Exclusive Deals May Be A Thing Of The Past

This may not be as great of a thing as you guys think. I wonder if we'll see 2K licensing Buffalo Bills football with the Bills, Browns and other types of teams in the game but teams like the Patriots, Steelers and Cowboys missing. Will this mean individual teams can license out whatever they want and the NFL license is no longer needed?

When it comes to apparel that may be the case but I doubt that will bleed over into video games. Back in the day, you could buy Cowboys hats from Nike, Apex, Starter. Now its just Reebok. We will go back to the days of different hat makers making Cowboys hats.

For video games, its hard as hell to sell a game with only 10 real teams. What will probably happen is the NFL will go back to offering it license to more than one company. When that will happen is anyone's guess.

[beastsofboston]

Re: American Needle Won! NFL Exclusive Deals May Be A Thing Of The Past

When it comes to apparel that may be the case but I doubt that will bleed over into video games. Back in the day, you could buy Cowboys hats from Nike, Apex, Starter. Now its just Reebok. We will go back to the days of different hat makers making Cowboys hats.

For video games, its hard as hell to sell a game with only 10 real teams. What will probably happen is the NFL will go back to offering it license to more than one company. When that will happen is anyone's guess.

Lets hope. This could bring the world of football games back to the old days.