Corporate & Securities Law

Sports Teams And Media

By David Fischer

Although not an antitrust issue, I thought this news (via the Washington Post) might generate a few comments (my emphasis):

Redskins owner Dan Snyder reached a deal yesterday to buy three local AM radio stations from Clear Channel Communications, including the area’s leading sports-talk station, WTEM. The purchase gives Snyder control of sports talk radio in Washington.  It thus gives the owner of the most popular and closely followed sports franchise in the region ownership of the bigget broadcast outlets for commentary about his team.

Snyder’s purchase of WTEM (980), WTNT (570) and WWRC (1260) for an undisclosed price means his Red Zebra Broadcasting arm will own six stations in the area. Red Zebra’s current stations, known as Triple X ESPN Radio, also carry sports-talk programs.

Before my fellow Washingtonians get too worked up:

Team owners have made similar moves for decades. Tribune Co. of Chicago owns baseball’s Cubs, the Chicago Tribune and WGN, the TV station that broadcasts the team’s games.  Ted Turner’s Turner Broadcasting System owned the Atlanta Braves and their main broadcast outlet, WTBS.  More recently, the NFL and the New York Yankees both started cable networks and moved games onto their channels.

In other sports and competition news, Justice Alito recently spoke about baseball and antitrust (The BLT via the Sports Law Blog):

On the subject of baseball and antitrust, Alito said the 1922 decision has been widely misinterpreted as granting baseball an antitrust exemption, which is “not exactly correct.” Alito took the audience through the history of the case and of baseball, concluding that the Supreme Court had affirmed the view of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit that baseball games were not examples of interstate commerce. Even though players cross state lines to play, the games themselves are “state affairs” from beginning to end and as such are not covered by the Sherman Act. Alito’s point apparently was that the Court had not specifically exempted baseball from antitrust laws, but that it had defined the sport in such a way that it, like other intrastate events, was not covered.

Alito said the Supreme Court’s decision has been pilloried by scholars and judges alike in the decades since it was issued. More recently, he said, some commentators have been “less harsh,” fitting it into a more modest view of the scope of the Constitution’s commerce clause. Alito indicated that he is in the camp that views the case more kindly.

Full post as published by Antitrust Review on June 05, 2008 (boomark / email).