The Archive
The precedent behind today's sports.
- 1922 May 29, 1922 Federal Baseball Club v. National League The Supreme Court ruled that baseball wasn't interstate commerce — a legal fiction even at the time — and granted MLB a full antitrust exemption no other league has ever gotten. A century of exceptions, protections, and leverage baseball's owners have used ever since traces back to this one holding. The exemption everyone assumes is normal is actually the outlier.
- 1971 March 1, 1971 Haywood v. National Basketball Association Haywood left college early, signed with a rival league, then tried to enter the NBA before its mandatory four-year waiting period was up. The league said no. The Court let him play. Every underclassman who has entered a draft early since is standing on Haywood's exception.
- 1972 June 19, 1972 Flood v. Kuhn Curt Flood refused a trade and sued the reserve clause directly, all the way to the Supreme Court — and lost. The Court acknowledged baseball's antitrust exemption was an anomaly, then upheld it anyway on legal inertia. Flood's loss did something his win couldn't have: it convinced the players' union that courts weren't the way out. Three years later, they found a technicality instead.
- 1975 December 23, 1975 The Messersmith–McNally Arbitration Marvin Miller had two pitchers play an entire season without signing new contracts — on purpose. When the season ended, he argued their old deals' one-year renewal clause had already been used up. The arbitrator agreed. No valid contract, no reserve right. Modern free agency wasn't born from a lawsuit. It was born from a technicality nobody else had thought to exploit.
- 1976 February 3, 1976 Robertson v. National Basketball Association Oscar Robertson lent his name to a six-year antitrust fight against the NBA's reserve clause — and against a proposed merger with the ABA that would have killed competing bids for every player in the league. The settlement landed the same year the merger did. Block the merger, and the reserve clause had nowhere left to hide.
- 1993 April 30, 1993 White v. National Football League The NFLPA did something almost nobody expects a union to do: it dissolved itself. No union, no labor exemption protecting the league's employment rules from antitrust scrutiny. Reggie White and the other plaintiffs sued directly — and won the free agency and salary cap system the NFL still runs on. Sometimes the fastest way to gain leverage is giving up the thing that was limiting you.
- 2010 May 24, 2010 American Needle, Inc. v. National Football League The NFL argued its 32 teams were legally a single entity when they licensed merchandise together — meaning antitrust law couldn't reach how they carved up that business. A unanimous Supreme Court said no: 32 separately owned teams acting together is exactly the kind of coordination antitrust law exists to watch. Every modern licensing, merchandise, and media rights arrangement still has to clear the standard this case set.
- 2021 June 21, 2021 NCAA v. Alston A unanimous Supreme Court struck down the NCAA's limits on education-related benefits — a narrow ruling, on paper. But Justice Kavanaugh's concurrence said the rest of the NCAA's compensation rules wouldn't survive the same scrutiny if challenged directly. The NCAA didn't wait to find out. Days later, NIL was permitted.
Historical summaries prepared from published opinions and secondary sources. Commentary and analysis, not legal advice.