Media & Entertainment Law

Amicus Briefs filed in American Needle v. NFL

By Rick Karcher, Michael McCann, Geoffrey Rapp, Greg Skidmore, and Howard Wasserman

• A joint brief filed by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission, available here.

• A brief by a group of economists including Rodney Fort, Brad Humphreys, Roger Noll, James Quirk, Stefan Szymanski, and Andrew Zimbalist, available here.

Interestingly, unless the Court's docket has not yet processed all amicus briefs filed on Friday, one notable omission from the list is the player's unions from the four major sports. It was previously reported by ESPN.com's Lester Munson that the unions were preparing to file amicus briefs in the case. If the unions are in fact waiting to file their amicus briefs, then they will apparently be filing briefs in favor of the respondent, the NFL. In that case, one would assume the unions will advocate single entity status for the leagues in at least some league functions, but not for purposes of labor disputes.

Update (Tues. Sept. 29, 8:45 am): It turns out that the Supreme Court's docket was just slow in processing all of the amicus briefs filed in support of American Needle. The ABA's website now has the following additional amicus briefs available for download:

• A brief by the players' unions in the four major sports (i.e., the NFLPA, MLBPA, NBAPA, and NHLPA), available here.

• A brief by the American Antitrust Institute and the Consumer Federation of America, available here.

• A brief by the National Football League Coaches Association, available here.

• A brief by the Merchant Trade Association, available here.

Full post as published by Sports Law Blog on September 28, 2009 (boomark / email).