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NFL Loses American Needle Fight In Supreme Court

It was covered all over the sports journalism landscape yesterday – The NFL lost its case in American Needle, Inc. v. National Football League.  It wasn’t just a loss, it was a unanimous loss (9-0).  The basic holding is that the NFL is not recognized as a single-entity.  Instead, for antitrust purposes, it is made up of thirty-two separate teams, all with separate motives and interests for their licensing of intellectual property, even though they all obviously share an interest in the long-term success of the NFL.

Here is a good quote from Justice Stevens, who delivered the opinion of the Court,

“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,’ “

I first started covering the antitrust action back in February 2009, when I found out that the U.S. Supreme Court asked the Solicitor General’s Office to comment on the Cert Request for the case.  Here is some background for those of you who are not familiar with the basic facts of the case.

Reebok has an exclusive license with the NFL to outfit all of the NFL’s players with Reebok headwear.  The deal was struck in 2000 and lasts through 2010.  American Needle brought an antitrust action against the NFL claiming that the league is in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act for allowing its member organizations (NFL teams) to give up their licensing rights to NFL Properties.  American Needle’s claim is that NFL Properties licensing of separate team properties was a contract, combination or conspiracy in restraint of trade. The U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit found that nothing in the Sherman Antitrust Act prohibited the NFL teams from cooperating in order to compete with other forms of entertainment and held that the NFL and its teams operate as a single entity when it comes to apparel sales..

The Supreme Court’s ruling, rejecting the leagues position, should make many of my colleagues, including Michael McCann, Marc Edelman, and Gabe Feldman, who wrote excellent law review articles on this subject, very happy.

The decision is limited to intellectual property issues, specifically regarding licensing, but there are already many people clamoring that it may have much farther reaching consequences, including preventing teams from making collective decisions regarding key business matters like the hiring of employees, the compensation paid to players, and rules regarding free agency and the draft.  Sports attorney David Cornell thinks that the decision will, in fact, play a big role in collective bargaining and labor negotiations by keeping things the same.  And who knows what the NFLPA is saying?  Talk about a broad interpretation of the Courts holding.

And for your enjoyment, the opinion of the Court, in its entirety, is embedded below.


american needle

By Darren Heitner

Darren Adam Heitner, Esq., is a preeminent sports attorney and the founder of Heitner Legal, P.L.L.C., a Fort Lauderdale-based law firm specializing in sports law, contract negotiations, intellectual property, and arbitration. He earned his Juris Doctor from the University of Florida Levin College of Law in 2010 and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, magna cum laude, from the University of Florida in 2007, where he was named Valedictorian of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Admitted to practice in the state bars of Florida, New York, and the District of Columbia, as well as multiple federal courts, Darren also serves as a certified arbitrator with the American Arbitration Association.

As an adjunct professor, Darren imparts his expertise through teaching Sports Law at the University of Florida Levin College of Law and Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) at the University of Miami School of Law in the Entertainment, Arts, and Sports Law LL.M. program. His scholarly contributions include authoring several books published by the American Bar Association, such as How to Play the Game: What Every Sports Attorney Needs to Know, and numerous articles in prominent publications like Forbes, Inc. Magazine, and Above the Law. His thought leadership in NIL has earned him recognition as one of the foremost experts by The Wall Street Journal, USA TODAY, and On3, and he has been lauded as a “power player in NIL deals” by Action Network and a “top sports trademark attorney” by Sportico.

Darren’s passion for sports law led him to establish Sports Agent Blog on December 31, 2005, initially titled “I Want To Be A Sports Agent.” The platform, created as a New Year’s resolution, has grown into a cornerstone of the sports agency community, offering in-depth analysis of industry trends, legal disputes, and agent-player dynamics. His commitment to the field is further evidenced by his representation of numerous athletes and sports agents, as well as his prior role as an Adjunct Professor at Indiana University Bloomington, where he developed and taught a course on Sport Agency Management from 2011 to 2014.

Darren’s contributions have been recognized with prestigious honors, including the University of Florida’s 40 Under 40 Award, the University of Florida Levin College of Law’s Outstanding Young Alumnus Award, and designation as the best lawyer in Fort Lauderdale by Fort Lauderdale Magazine. He remains an active voice in the sports law community, sharing insights through his weekly NIL newsletter and his X posts, engaging a broad audience on legal developments in sports.

3 replies on “NFL Loses American Needle Fight In Supreme Court”

This is really interesting. Not being a lawyer and well versed in the case I am still having trouble grasping how this will affect the league. Teams will have more indipendence? Does that mean that every team can have their own sponsors for their gear? Isn’t this a competitive advantage for bigger market teams? Please provide a few practical applications that this ruling will have.

This is a great decision for many, many reasons. #1 in my book, however, is the potential return of the greatest sports video game franchise of all time, 2K Football.

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