Radovich v. National Football League

Radovich v. National Football League (NFL), 352 U.S. 445 (1957), is a U.S. Supreme Court decision ruling that professional football , unlike professional baseball , was subject to antitrust laws. It was the third of three such cases heard by the Court in the 1950s involving the antitrust status of professional sports.

Three justices dissented, finding the majority arbitrary and inconsistent in refusing football the exemption it had upheld five years previously in _Toolson v. New York Yankees _ (346 U.S. 356 (1952)). The majority admitted that the similarity between the two sports from a legal standpoint would probably have denied baseball the exemption as well were it sought afresh, but existing case law had tied their hands in the absence of any congressional action.

While the NFL has secured some limited antitrust exemptions since through the legislative process, the lack of a blanket exemption due to this decision has had a major impact on the subsequent history of football . Unlike Major League Baseball , the NFL has faced several competing leagues since then (one of which merged with it ) and seen five of its franchises move to new cities. Many of these actions have been accompanied by lawsuits brought against the NFL (often successfully) by competing leagues, public stadium-management authorities and its own owners.

Contents

• 1 Background of the case

  • 1.1 NFL–AAFC rivalry

  • 1.2 Professional sports and antitrust

• 2 Trial and appeal

• 3 Before the Court

• 4 Decision

  • 4.1 Majority

  • 4.2 Dissents

• 5 Aftermath

• 6 Legacy

  • 6.1 Competing leagues

  • 6.2 Labor issues

  • 6.3 Third parties

  • 6.4 Criticism

• 7 See also

• 8 References

• 9 External links

Background of the case

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In 1938 undrafted University of Southern California graduate William "Bill" Radovich began his NFL career as a guard with the Detroit Lions . He chose to sign with them because they were the only team in the league that guaranteed players an off-season job.

After four seasons, during which he made sportswriters' All-Pro lists, he left to serve in the Navy during World War II. He returned to the Lions after the war ended, in 1945 .

The next year, he asked to be traded to the Los Angeles Rams , or be better paid, as his father, who lived near that city, was seriously ill and he wanted to be able to spend more time with him. Lions' owner Fred L. Mandel Jr. refused, saying (according to Radovich) "I'd either play in Detroit or I wouldn't play anywhere". Since his contract had expired, he instead signed with the Los Angeles Dons of the rival All-America Football Conference (AAFC) and played with them for two seasons, despite Mandel's promise to put him on a blacklist for five seasons. In 1948 the San Francisco Clippers of the Pacific Coast Professional Football League (PCPFL), a minor pro football league whose clubs had some affiliations with the NFL, offered him a position as a player and coach. After learning that the NFL had indeed blacklisted Radovich due to his play in the AAFC and would punish any club that did hire him, however, the Clippers withdrew their offer.

Radovich had to take jobs outside of professional football. One was waiting tables at Los Angeles's Brown Derby restaurant. There he met Joseph Alioto , a former antitrust litigator with the Justice Department . In conversation, he told Alioto how he had come to this, and Alioto responded by sketching out a legal brief on the back of a cocktail napkin .

NFL–AAFC rivalry

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Further information: All-America Football Conference § Competition

The AAFC was an eight-team league that played from 1946–49. Since it emerged at a time when the NFL was just beginning to recover from the war years (when some teams temporarily merged), was national in scope and had owners wealthier than most of their NFL counterparts, it posed a serious competitive threat to the older league. The NFL took many steps to prevent the AAFC from making headway, blacklisting media who had covered the league as well as players who jumped to it.

Ultimately the AAFC collapsed due to the dominance of the Cleveland Browns , who won all four of its championships, and financial problems and instability at some of its weaker franchises. In December 1949 the two leagues merged. The Browns, Baltimore Colts (not related to the team now known as the Indianapolis Colts ) and San Francisco 49ers joined the NFL; other teams folded or merged with an existing team.

Professional sports and antitrust

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In _Federal Baseball Club v. National League _ (259 U.S. 200 (1922)), Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. had written for a unanimous court that Major League Baseball was not covered by the Sherman Antitrust Act because it was not interstate commerce . Travel by teams across state line was "an incident" to the business of staging baseball games, which he described as "purely state affairs". Three decades later _Toolson v. New York Yankees _ upheld that precedent due to congressional inaction to change it, despite changes in the business such as broadcasting deals that made the interstate aspect a much greater part of the commerce.

_Toolson'_s short, _[per curiam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wi

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