Bipartisan AGs Step Up to the Plate to Challenge Baseball Antitrust Exemption

Cozen O'Connor
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  • A bipartisan group of 18 AGs, led by Connecticut AG William Tong, filed an amicus brief encouraging the U.S. Supreme Court to grant the petition for writ of certiorari in Tri-City Valleycats, Inc. v. Office of the Commissioner of Baseball, No. 23-283, which challenges a series of Supreme Court decisions from the last century that exempt professional baseball from all state and federal antitrust laws.
  • In their brief, the AGs argue the exemption allowed Major League Baseball to orchestrate a horizontal agreement in 2020 that limited the number of affiliated Minor League Baseball teams, which hurt the economic wellbeing of teams and communities in twenty-three states. They assert that the judge-made federal exemption shielding baseball from antitrust scrutiny impermissibly limits the police powers of the states, and that Congress never intended to preempt state antitrust laws from regulating the business of baseball.
  • The AGs ask the Supreme Court to grant certiorari in order to reexamine and reconsider the prior decisions establishing the baseball antitrust exemption.

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