Yes, their deal can be challenged. The Supreme Court decided that the 32 NFL teams are not a single company when it comes to selling merchandise. Even though they work together to play football, each team is a separate business that competes with the others for fans, players, and money. When they all agreed to sell their logos through one exclusive deal, they stopped competing with each other in the hat market. This kind of group action between competitors is exactly what anti-monopoly laws are designed to look at. The Court said that just because the teams need to cooperate on the field doesn't give them a free pass to eliminate competition in the marketplace.

The Supreme Court said that each NFL team is its own business with its own interests, especially when it comes to making money from merchandise. So, when they all decide together who can use their logos, it's like a bunch of separate businesses agreeing not to compete, which is not allowed.

Yes. The collective licensing of intellectual property by the NFL and its teams constitutes concerted action subject to scrutiny under Section 1 of the Sherman Act. The determination of whether conduct is concerted action under Section 1 is a functional one, focusing on substance rather than form. The relevant inquiry is whether the agreement joins together separate economic actors with separate economic interests, thereby depriving the marketplace of independent centers of decision-making. Although NFL teams must cooperate to produce games, they are still distinct, profit-maximizing entities that compete with each other in various markets, including the market for intellectual property. The teams' decision to license their individually owned trademarks collectively through NFLP is a concerted action among potential competitors and is not the unilateral action of a single entity. The fact that cooperation is necessary for the league to exist does not immunize all of their collective conduct from antitrust scrutiny; rather, it is a factor to be considered under the Rule of Reason analysis.

Yes, the NFL's collective licensing of team trademarks through NFLP constitutes concerted action subject to §1 of the Sherman Act. We reach this conclusion because the NFL teams do not possess either the unitary decisionmaking quality or the single aggregation of economic power characteristic of independent action. Each team is a substantial, independently owned, and independently managed business with separate economic interests. The teams compete with one another in various ways, including in the market for intellectual property. When each NFL team licenses its intellectual property, it is not pursuing the common interests of the whole league but is instead pursuing its own corporate interests. The 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. The fact that the teams have organized and own a legally separate entity (NFLP) that centralizes the management of their intellectual property does not change this analysis. NFLP's licensing decisions effectively require the assent of more than a mere majority of teams, and each team's decision reflects not only an interest in NFLP's profits but also an interest in the team's individual profits. Therefore, NFLP is an instrumentality of the teams when it comes to the licensing of their intellectual property. The justification that the teams must cooperate to produce NFL football does not shield their marketing conduct from antitrust scrutiny. While the special characteristics of the NFL may provide justification for many kinds of collective decisions under a Rule of Reason analysis, the conduct at issue here is still concerted activity subject to §1 of the Sherman Act.

American Needle, Inc. v. National Football League

Case Podcast

Rule of Law:

The Legal Principle

Facts:

Procedural Posture:

How It Got Here

Issue:

Legal Question at Stake

Opinions:

Majority, Concurrences & Dissents

Analysis:

Why This Case Matters

Gunnerbot