Major League Baseball, an Antitrust Exemption, and the Ninth Circuit, by Jarod Bona, The Antitrust Attorney Blog

http://www.theantitrustattorney.com/category/classic-antitrust-cases/

Baseball is special. How do we know that? Is it the fact that it has been declared America’s Pastime? Or is it the feelings we have when we smell the freshly cut grass on a sunny spring day? Or is it the acoustics of a wood bat striking a leather-wrapped baseball? The answer is that we know that baseball is special because the US Supreme Court has told us so.

Over the course of ninety-two years, the Supreme Court has consistently affirmed and re-affirmed a special exemption from the antitrust laws for the ‘business of providing public baseball games for profit between clubs of professional baseball.’ There is a state action exemption, an insurance exemption, a labor exemption, and a  . . . baseball exemption? That’s right. A baseball exemption from the federal antitrust laws. . . .