Antitrust and Consumer Protection
Competition: 2016, Vol 25, No. 2
Content
- Biometric Privacy Litigation: Is Unique Personally Identifying Information Obtained From a Photograph Biometric Information?
- California Online Privacy Laws: the Battle For Personal Data
- Chair's Column
- "Clear and Conspicuous" Disclosures Between Celebrity Endorsers and Advertisers On Social Media Websites
- Comments On Proposed Update On Intellectual Property Licensing Guidelines
- Dispatches From the West Coast: Federalism, Competition, and Comments On the United States' Proposed Update To the Antitrust Guidelines For Licensing Intellectual Property
- Editor's Column
- Exceptions To the Rule: Considering the Impact of Non-practicing Entities and Cooperative Regulatory Processes In the Update To the Antitrust Guidelines For the Licensing of Intellectual Property
- Ftc Privacy and Data Security Enforcement and Guidance Under Section 5
- Masthead
- Never Say Never: the Ninth Circuit's Misguided Categorical Approach To Individual Damages Questions When Assessing Rule 23(B)(3) Predominance
- The Rapidly Changing Landscape of Private Global Antitrust Litigation: Increasingly Serious Implications For U.S. Practitioners
- Home Run or Strikeout? the Unsettled Relationship Between the Sports Broadcasting Act and Cable Programming
HOME RUN OR STRIKEOUT? THE UNSETTLED RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE SPORTS BROADCASTING ACT AND CABLE PROGRAMMING
By Steven M. Perry1
I. INTRODUCTION
The Sports Broadcasting Act ("SBA") exempts from the antitrust laws "any joint agreement . . . by which any league of clubs participating in professional football, baseball, basketball, or hockey contests sells or otherwise transfers all or any part of the rights of such league’s member clubs in the sponsored telecasting of the games of football, baseball, basketball, or hockey, as the case may be, engaged in or conducted by such clubs."2
In the 55 years since the SBA was enacted, only a handful of courts have addressed the question of whether the antitrust exemptions contained in the SBA apply to basic cable programming. This article reaches two conclusions with respect to that question. First, and contrary to what various commentators have assumed, no court has ever held that league-wide agreements that license sports programming on basic cable channels are, or are not, exempt from the antitrust laws under the SBA. Second, the application of current principles of statutory interpresentation demonstrates that the SBA’s exemptions do, in fact, apply to basic cable programming.